Victor Davis Hanson thinks the attempted coup d’etat is dead.
The illegal effort to destroy the 2016 Trump campaign by Hillary Clinton campaign’s use of funds to create, disseminate among court media, and then salt among high Obama administration officials, a fabricated, opposition smear dossier failed.
So has the second special prosecutor phase of the coup to abort the Trump presidency failed.
The conspiracy is certainly collapsing. Where did Andrew McCabe come from ?
He was a lawyer but not a sworn agent of the FBI until 1996..
McCabe began his FBI career in the New York Field Office[18] in 1996.[20] While there, he was on the SWAT team.[21] In 2003, he began work as a supervisory special agent at the Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force.[22] Later, McCabe held management positions in the FBI Counterterrorism Division,[18] the FBI National Security Branch[23] and the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
I see no evidence of any administrative roll, such as SAC or ASAC.
McCabe did not oversee the Clinton email server probe while his wife was running for office and he was excluded from FBI investigations into public corruption cases in Virginia.
Was he involved in the Clinton Foundation scandals BEFORE his wife ran for office with the assistance of Terry McAuliffe and his $700,000 ? I learned that Virginia has no rules about the use of campaign funds for personal use. She lost and and the remainder of the donation was hers.
Conservative Tree House has some more on McCabe.
Mark Penn, former Clinton campaign aide, agrees that it was an attempted coup.
The most egregious anti-democratic actions ever taken by the what can now fairly be called the Deep State are confirmed with the publication of fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s new book detailing how the FBI and Justice Department plotted to remove President Trump from office for firing FBI Director James Comey.
Justice Department and FBI officials spied on U.S. citizens with false warrants, gave a pass to one presidential campaign with a predetermined investigation, investigated another political campaign on the basis of no verified evidence, and illegally leaked information on investigations. They discussed wiretapping and using the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove President Trump, and appointed a special counsel as a retaliatory move for Comey’s firing.
This is a bigger scandal than the successful Nixon coup d’etat.
The differences are two. One, Trump has no skeleton like Nixon’s aid for the burglars which opened him to accusations of coverup. Two, unlike Nixon, Trump does not care what his enemies think.
OK, so they failed to elect Hillary, and they failed to get Trump impeached (yet), but they have put massive roadblocks in Trump’s ability to get things done, especially regarding any sort of foreign policy towards Russia, and they have driven roughly half the country certifiably insane–the vast majority of Democrats actually believe this garbage. It seems a certainty that the Dems are going to impeach him still, and I see no sign that the system that they abused to spy on Trump’s associates in and outside of the campaign has been reformed at all.
“Trump has no skeleton like Nixon’s”
Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime. The Dems in NY state have openly stated that they are never, ever, ever going to stop using the “justice” system to come after Trump and anyone having anything to do with him.
By my rough count, McCabe could’ve probably gathered 7 out 15 cabinet votes for a 25th amendment job right off the bat, assuming he was prepared to use blackmail on a few of them, which he apparently was, judging by his investigation of Sessions. That would be just shy of a majority. I don’t think he would’ve had Pence in his camp, but if Rosenstein taped something really offensive, who knows? He might’ve turned Pence and another secretary.
Trump obviously sensed how close they were to toppling him, and that was why he employed the Ottomanesque warring vassals personnel strategy during his first couple years. Also another good reason for appointing Elaine Chao and her husband’s Senate leadership on his side.
Good point about McConnell.
His problem is that he has almost no allies. The GOPe is beholden to donors who are all crony capitalists. The exceptions are Vegas billionaires like Wynn and Adelson. They make their money the old fashioned way, by gambling,
What everyone seems to be ignoring is that, although the VP plus a majority of the cabinet can temporarily suspend the president’s authority, the next step is for him to inform both houses that he is able to continue his duties, in which case he is back in power unless denied by two-thirds votes in both houses. If two-thirds of both houses wanted to get rid of Trump they could impeach and convict, no need to use the 25th Amendment.
I will consider the coup failed when McCabe and others are in jail.
The real issue here is not that bureaucrats will forget their duty and abuse their authority — that has been going on since at least the eunuchs of the Chinese emperors. The issue is that they are being allowed to get away with it. The Rule of Law has been replaced by the Rule of Man (or actually the Rule of Woman). Lying Chrissie lied to the FBI and lied to Congress about Judge Cavanaugh, yet she walks free. Crooked Hillary is not behind bars. That woman who used her position in the IRS to stymie the TEA Party is happily retired on a fat taxpayer-provided pension instead of breaking rocks on a chain gang.
It is a slow process, but we are losing faith in the Political Class’s ability to provide justice for all … which is the only justification for government having a monopoly on the use of violence to coerce citizens. There will inevitably be consequences. But what those consequences will be, and when they will start to cause real pain, remains to be seen.
Is this “country” worth fighting for anymore?
1) the attempted coup is still in progress.
2) a coup by its very nature is an act of treason against the legal/constitutional system of whatever polity it is taking place in.
3) an attempted coup, and a failure to resist it actively is a sign of a failure of the social contract that holds a polity together, including the rule of law.
4) historically throughout man’s history, the losers in a coup are not patted on the head and told to be good boys from now on. One side or the other wins definitively and the losing side submits completely and/or is killed, imprisoned, or exiled.
5) we are watching what is functionally a ruling elite of all parties and the State bureaucracy engaging in the coup. No one who is being caught plotting or abetting the coup is being punished as they openly work to overthrow the constitutional order. And their ability to act with absolute impunity means literally that electoral politics and the law cannot restore that order unless backed by kinetic action.
6) that is a very dangerous place for a society to be in. Unless we see coup plotters and adherents suffer REAL punishment [I am not a nice person. Consider the sentences handed down in July 1683 in Ole Bailey Court against those convicted of attempting a coup against King Charles II of Britain. That is the level of serious punishment that may be needed.] the only recourse may perforce be kinetic action along the line of a 4th Generation Civil War.
7) we either actively prosecute the coup plotters, or end up in a civil war with unknown and unknowable outcome. There is no third way. If the forces of the Left succeed, those who oppose(d) them will be headed for the camps. Look at the crazies we are dealing with on the Left and tell me that they would not love to be running their own GULAG.
Subotai Bahadur
“Crazy” is right. It only takes few times talking to an apparently normal leftist, and seeing some unapproved thought elicit a mouth foaming reaction. The capacity for rational thought is gone.
I came across this, thought it describes the situation pretty well- most of you are probably familiar with it already-
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on stupidity and the public sphere:
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
“Trump does not care what his enemoes think”
I think that is what drives them nutty. The rule book changed. He doesn’t kowtow when faced with accusations.
David Friedman wrote: “What everyone seems to be ignoring is that, although the VP plus a majority of the cabinet can temporarily suspend the president’s authority, the next step is for him to inform both houses that he is able to continue his duties …”
The Extreme Left and their cadres in the bureaucracy are evil, but not necessarily ignorant.
The plan was probably to get the Cabinet to temporarily remove President Trump from office and take him to some government medical facility under the guard of selected Secret Service agents who had publicly declared they would not take a bullet for Trump. There, President Trump would (surprise!) have had a fatal stroke or heart attack — with his poor health explaining the erratic behavior which had caused the Cabinet to suspend him from office.
The autopsy would be mishandled, records would be wiped by Hilary’s cloth, and the doctors who attended him in the government facility would die immediately afterwards in an inexplicable car crash — or possibly a helicopter crash. Truly tragic!
And Stalin’s ghost would smile.
I don’t think Kennedy’s complete autopsy report has been been released .
The Bethesda report does not include mention of the adrenal glands. The surgeons at Parkland gave him Solucortef IV because of the history of Addisons.
That report was an appendix to the Warrantees Report, which was doctored
“The Extreme Left and their cadres in the bureaucracy are evil, but not necessarily ignorant.”
I dunno, I think they’re completely ignorant, and stupid as well. It seems clear the plan was always to do anything that it took to either pressure Trump to resign or get enough GOP Senators (well over half of whom don’t support him at all anyway, they probably figured) on their side to convict in an impeachment trial. I think they seriously underestimated who he is, though. Most of them would have long ago thrown in the towel and not put up with all this idiocy.
One also has to remember that with the political segregation that has taken place in the country over the last few decades, very few Dems know anything at all about how Republicans, conservatives, rural people, etc., think. It seems bizarre that they think that a level of anger could exist that would bring Trump to the nomination and election victory, and then just sit idly by while he was forced out of office in a matter of weeks or months. You have to be delusional to think that, whether that’s due to ignorance, stupidity, or mental illness I’ll leave to your own interpretation.
Is anyone else have fits with spell check and autocorrect ?
“warrantees report was supposed to be Warren Report,
OK. I thought this was obvious from shortly after Obama set the witch hunt in motion. (You must see the South Park episode where they shred this term.)
The Russians stole Hillery’s crown and Trump helped them.
With the entire NS apparatus having “strong belief” and no proof whatsoever I thought it was glaringly obvious that this was bull.
Its the almost complete control of media that allows distortion at this level and they are doing so well with the present campaign of lies, that its being rolled out all over the world. Who knew 1984 would turn out to be a manual for the future?
“I don’t think Kennedy’s complete autopsy report has been been released .”
If you will allow me to go off topic for a minute, there is a fascinating book by Bonar Menninger (“Mortal Error”, 1992) which presents a fairly convincing story that President Kennedy was hit by two different types of bullet — one was a WWII era full metal jacket bullet fired by Oswald, the second was a disintegrating bullet fired from a then-new AR-15 type of gun. The second bullet was an accidental shot by a Secret Service agent riding in the car behind the President.
LBJ was advised of this tragedy almost immediately, and decided to squash the story about Secret Service involvement to avoid further disturbing the American people. This necessitated kicking up dust and hiding information, such as parts of the autopsy report. That secrecy gave rise to all the conspiracy theories around Kennedy’s assassination.
“The second bullet was an accidental shot by a Secret Service agent”
Gavin Longmuir – I do not know it this references the same book, but I read an article some time ago where a South African firearms expert advanced a similar theory – The Kennedy was killed by a Secret Service agent who was shooting back at Oswald. As far as I can remember he based his conclusion on the newsreel footage – he claim to be able to tell exactly when the bullet that killed Kennedy hit, and that it was obviously at such an angle that it could only have been shot by one of the Secret Service agents.
I’d never heard the Secret Service theory before. I have stood in the window of the School Book Depository where Oswald fired his shots and it is not a difficult shot at all. The location of the limousine is quite close.
It was the Chicago Outfit that done it.
According to Files, Nicoletti did not join him until the morning of November 22. The two went to Dealey Plaza, using as a guide a map of the motorcade route that Roselli had gotten from Ruby. He and Nicoletti picked a spot in the Dal-Tex tower (next to the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald worked) for Nicoletti to shoot from. Only then, Files says, did the hit man ask him to be a backup. Nicoletti feared Roselli was too rusty to hit a target from a long distance, and he knew Files had been trained as a sniper in the Army. Files said he set up behind the stockade fence on the grassy knoll to get a shot from the front of the procession. The weapon he chose was a Remington Fireball, a cross between a rifle and a pistol that could fit inside an attaché case. Nicoletti’s one instruction was not to hit Jackie. Files followed the motorcade through the scope of his Remington and shot a .222 caliber bullet that hit the president in the right temple. He then casually took off his jacket, turned it inside out and put his gun back in its case.
During his brief encounter with Oswald, Files said, the two did not discuss each other’s mission. He believed Oswald never fired a shot and was unwittingly there as a patsy—as Oswald himself said after his arrest. Other hit men were in town to kill Oswald, but he slipped away before they got to him—the major glitch in the day’s operation.
This grassy knoll trigger man was James Files, still living
In 1994, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was quoted as having investigated Files’ allegation and found it “not to be credible”
Oh Ok, since we now know how credible the FBI really is I would advise believing the opposite of what they officially declare.
“The Kennedy was killed by a Secret Service agent who was shooting back at Oswald.”
Menninger’s book assembles some fairly persuasive evidence in support of that theory. As Mike K says, Oswald did not have a difficult shot from the Book Depository. Menninger’s reconstruction is that Oswald fired 3 shots, only one of which hit President Kennedy. That was the “magic bullet” which went through Kennedy’s neck (probably a fatal wound), and then hit Governor Connally sitting in front of Kennedy in the shoulder and again in the arm, and was recovered bent but intact from Connally’s gurney. A tough Full Metal Jacket bullet.
Again, per Menninger’s reconstruction, a Secret Service agent named in the book (a spare driver, not a gun-man) riding in the car directly behind the President heard Oswald’s shots, grabbed the AR-15 which was mounted on the floor along the axis of the car, and turned to face behind from where he had heard the shots. In picking up the rifle (which was pointing directly at the President’s car in front), the Agent accidentally pressed the trigger, unleashing a bullet which at that short range hit the President directly on the back of the skull and disintegrated (definitely a fatal wound). Clearly not the same kind of Full Metal Jacket bullet that Oswald fired, and consistent with the kind of bullet fired by a modern AR-15 rather than a WWII rifle.
The forensic evidence for this theory seems strong. Perhaps the clincher is the photo from the time of the Agent in the car behind the President holding the AR-15.
Gruray,
the Remington Fireball was a cartridge, not a weapon. The thing you are thinking of was the experimental XP-100 by Remington that fired that cartridge. It was discontinued after a very short run in the 60’s, although the cartridge was available for other Remington Arms after that. The XP 100’s had a recall for safety issues involving unloading late in the 60’s.
I doubt some mook from Chicago would have been interested in getting one of those in 1963. Professionals tend to stick to known and proven tools.
But you never know, and YMMV.
R
I vaguely recall shooting an XP-100 about 40 years ago. If I recall, it is a bolt action pistol
with a sculpted grip, this one with a pistol scope. Was at the house of my sister’s friend in Oregon. He and some buddies had all of their
guns out making noise and punching holes in paper. For a target, I had one of those paper box exploder targets. Set it off with one round.
But Files wasn’t a mook. He was from Alabama, and they referred to him as a hillbilly. Files claims to have served in Laos training soldiers in small weapons and explosives. After he came back stateside, he hooked up with the Outfit operating various chop shops, running guns, and training anti-Castro rebels in Florida (so he claims). He was just the kind of guy that the mooks liked to hire for those jobs. In that line of work he would’ve been up to date on the latest firearms, especially the squirrel and rabbit shooters.