The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Permanent Coup

The first time I used the term "coup" to describe the daily attempts by the four constituencies to destabilize the presidency of Donald Trump and remove him from office was about six months into his presidency—in June 2017. My reference to a "coup" occurred in a footnote to a post. Since that time, I've suggested that a soft coup, conducted by deep state operatives in the FBI and intelligence community has been ongoing and may have been aided and abetted by appointees/holdovers from the previous administration. I admit that this sounds like tin foil hat conspiracy theory stuff. After all, this kind of thing happens only in third world countries, not in the USA. Until Trump. Sometimes a conspiracy isn't a theory—it's an actual fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by serious people—AG William Barr and Special Prosecutor John Dunham—who will report to the nation in coming months.

The Democrats, along with other members of the four constituencies, are terrified of those reports and what they'll imply. Their terror amplifies their attacks on Trump and has taken the 'by any means necessary' meme to new heights. They hope that by delegitimizing Trump and his administration they'll blunt the impact of the Justice department and IG reports and as a consequence, escape censure, condemnation or worse, indictment.

Of course, the Dems' trained hamsters in the media have dismissed all of this, showing an amazing lack of journalistic curiosity about the people and events connected to an attemot to unseat an elected president. No real surprise there. But, in addition to many Right-leaning journalists, a few media types on the Left have shown surprising courage in speaking out. One of them, Matt Taibbi, is a journalist I mentioned in recent post. Today, Taibbi goes even further, suggesting like I have, that an ongoing coup attempt, he calls it a "permanent coup," is being conducted. He writes:
My discomfort in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump. Many Americans don’t see this because they’re not used to waking up in a country where you’re not sure who the president will be by nightfall. They don’t understand that this predicament is worse than having a bad president.
Indeed, "the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal" are [emphasis mine] are more dangerous than Trump. The irony is that the mainstream media suggests they are heroes, when in fact, they're anything but. Like all aspects of this travesty, the Democrats use projection when they refer to Trump as a threat to democracy. In reality, with their recent impeachment actions, the Dems represent a dangerous and considerably more significant threat.

Taibbi provides a little history:
The Trump presidency is the first to reveal a full-blown schism between the intelligence community and the White House. Senior figures in the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies made an open break from their would-be boss before Trump’s inauguration, commencing a public war of leaks that has not stopped.

The first big shot was fired in early January, 2017, via a CNN.com headline, “Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him.” This tale, about the January 7th presentation of former British spy Christopher Steele’s report to then-President-elect Trump, began as follows:
Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.
Four intelligence chiefs in the FBI’s James Comey, the CIA’s John Brennan, the NSA’s Mike Rogers, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, presented an incoming president with a politically disastrous piece of information, in this case a piece of a private opposition research report.

Among other things because the news dropped at the same time Buzzfeed decided to publish the entire “bombshell” Steele dossier, reporters spent that week obsessing not about the mode of the story’s release, but about the “claims.” In particular, audiences were rapt by allegations that Russians were trying to blackmail Trump with evidence of a golden shower party commissioned on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama himself.

Twitter exploded. No other news story mattered. For the next two years, the “claims” of compromise and a “continuing” Trump-Russian “exchange” hung over the White House like a sword of Damocles.

Few were interested in the motives for making this story public. As it turned out, there were two explanations, one that was made public, and one that only came out later. The public justification as outlined in the CNN piece, was to “make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him [were] circulating among intelligence agencies.”

However, we know from Comey’s January 7, 2017 memo to deputy Andrew McCabe and FBI General Counsel James Baker there was another explanation. Comey wrote:
I said I wasn’t saying this was true, only that I wanted [Trump] to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands. I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material or [redacted] and that we were keeping it very close-hold.
Imagine if a similar situation had taken place in January of 2009, involving president-elect Barack Obama. Picture a meeting between Obama and the heads of the CIA, NSA, and FBI, along with the DIA, in which the newly-elected president is presented with a report complied by, say, Judicial Watch, accusing him of links to al-Qaeda. Imagine further that they tell Obama they are presenting him with this information to make him aware of a blackmail threat, and to reassure him they won’t give news agencies a “hook” to publish the news.

Now imagine if that news came out on Fox days later. Imagine further that within a year, one of the four officials became a paid Fox contributor. Democrats would lose their minds in this set of circumstances.
Every progressive and #NeverTrumper should reread Taibbi's last two paragraphs and provide an honest assessment of their reaction to a coup attempt against their beloved Barack Obama. If they're honest, they would admit that "losing their minds" would be the least of their reaction.

Unfortunately, the Democrats and their supporters within the four constituencies have already lost their minds. Hatred of the man, Trump, is threatening the very foundation of the office of the presidency. The Dems and their supported within the deep state justify their actions with moral posturing, but at its core, the soft coup that they now call "impeachment" is about the fear that their past actions will be exposed and will lead to their ruin. Their actions, as Taibbi correctly notes, have threatened the very foundation of our electoral process and the peaceful transition of power. Their actions have been and continue to be dishonest and repugnant. One can only hope that truth wins out.