Caitlin on why Trump won’t take down Obama
Why “Obamagate” Will Never Lead To Anything Of Significance
The word “Obamagate” was thrust into mainstream attention by the concerted efforts of Trump and his surrogates after new details on the early days of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation emerged. These details include Obama officials (including Joe Biden) requesting the unmasking of a conversation between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the FBI’s then-counterintelligence director discussing trying to get Michael Flynn to lie during his interrogation about the Kislyak call, and the revelation that there was never any concrete evidence that Russia hacked the DNC.
These are important revelations that are worthy of mainstream attention, but like basically everything else in this stupid, stupid timeline this issue has instead been reduced to the stagnation of vapid partisan squabbling. Democrats and their allied media are finger wagging at Trump for using “conspiracy theories” to distract from his coronavirus failures, and “MAGA” pundits are once again beating the tired old drum that this scandal is going to bring down major Deep State players and drain the swamp once and for all.
Ever since 2016 both of America’s mainstream political parties have been taking turns screaming at the top of their lungs that earth-shattering revelations are right around the corner which are about to obliterate the other party any minute now, and if you’re still buying into this show I highly recommend you also take up watching WWE, because you’ll definitely love it.
“By any normal standard, former FBI Director Comey would now be in serious legal trouble, as should [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, et al,” Ray McGovern wrote for Consortium News the other day. “Additional evidence of FBI misconduct under Comey seems to surface every week — whether the abuses of FISA, misconduct in the case against Gen. Michael Flynn, or misleading everyone about Russian hacking of the DNC. If I were attorney general, I would declare Comey a flight risk and take his passport. And I would do the same with Clapper and Brennan.”
Indeed, this would be the “normal standard”, yet it hasn’t happened. Neither Comey nor Clapper nor Brennan are in any legal trouble at all, nor will they be, nor will any other major player responsible for leading America on a crazy collusion wild goose chase which accomplished nothing but distracting from real issues and manufacturing consent for mountains of cold war escalations against Russia.
You will never see Obama or his administration officials brought down by “Obamagate” for the same reason Trump wasn’t brought down by the Mueller investigation: the swamp protects its own. Both Obama and Trump administrations are packed full of crooks and mass murderers who could and should be imprisoned for any number of offenses, but they won’t be, because that would require a prosecutorial body that is separate from the swamp of corruption with which both of America’s mainstream parties are inexorably interwoven. You cannot use the swamp to drain the swamp.
Do you know why Trump never made good on his campaign platform of locking up Hillary Clinton? Besides the fact that their entire conflict has always been fake, I mean? The Trump administration could easily have found grounds upon which to prosecute Clinton if they wanted to, but going after a loyal establishment swamp monster would have brought the wrath of the entire swamp down upon him. As soon as he had a political opponent in office, if not before, Trump would himself be facing criminal prosecution. By collaborating with the swamp you ensure your own protection, and by attacking it you ensure your destruction.
That’s why no serious attempt has ever been made to remove Trump from office; he’s been playing nice with existing power structures without challenging them in any meaningful way. Everyone who knew anything was aware that the Mueller collusion would never go anywhere, and anyone who could count Senate seats knew impeachment would fizzle. It was all kayfabe conflict so that Trump’s “opposition” could present the appearance of opposition without interfering in agendas they themselves support or prosecuting crimes of which they themselves are also guilty.
It’s also why Obama never had any intention of prosecuting Bush’s heinous war crimes, citing “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards”. In reality Obama always understood that in order to play the “president” role (and enjoy its massive perks for the rest of his life), he’d need to collaborate with establishment power structures rather than upsetting them. He knew that if he were to go after Bush he’d ensure his own destruction; under “normal standards” prosecution is the only sane and normal response to war crimes, but in the Mutually Assured Destruction environment of establishment corruption, there are no normal standards.
I point this out because it’s painful to watch people on both sides continually getting their hopes up that the big KABOOM is right around the corner which will finally vindicate their worldview and punish their partisan rivals. It will not happen. Trump will not drain the swamp, and neither will Biden or whatever soulless swamp monster inhabits the White House next. You were lied to. It’s good to be aware of surveillance abuses, mass-scale psyops and media malpractice, but definitely abandon hope that any of this will lead to any major changes in the establishment itself.
If we want real change, it cannot and will not come from either of the two mainstream political factions whose primary job is preventing real change. It’s going to have to come from the people; we’re going to have to find a way to punch through the propaganda brainwashing, wake up to reality, and use the power of our numbers to force the changes which will benefit us past all the oligarchic safeguards that have been placed in front of us to prevent us from doing so.
This is a lot less pleasant than believing some magical hero in a white hat is going to ride in and do all our work for us and all we need to do is relax and “trust the plan”. It’s a lot less comfortable than expunging the fake two-party worldview from our minds which vast fortunes and years of conditioning have gone into manufacturing. But it is reality.
Read this at the source to see the links that I didn’t include here.
Glenn Greenwald explains what unmasking
Many people who don't know what unmasking is or when it's permitted and, most of all, don't have the information needed to assess its propriety here, have instantly formed emphatic opinions because of the potential to hurt Biden.
There's no way now to know if it's legitimate: pic.twitter.com/kvp2UqF1vA
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 13, 2020
No president has broken charges against their predecessors ever. Gawd knows that Obama would have had a slam dunk case against Bush for torture and war crimes just to name two crimes Bush/Cheney committed. From the information I have read it seems that Trump might have a good chance to go after Obama for sedition or attempted sedition, but there is no way the people who actually run this country would allow that to happen. There is a slim chance that Barr will be allowed to go after Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Strzok, but Obama? Nope. No way. But it will probably be another distraction for Trump’s supporters like Russia and Ukraine Gates were used as a distraction for Hillary’s supporters. Meanwhile the country will continue being hollowed out by the elite asswipes.
Comments
Caitlin, I am afraid you have misjudged two things.
You know, "the thing". Actually two things.
Number one, whether you like it or not, Trump is holding the winning hand.
Number two, a political upheaval on the way is larger than fair Caitlin wishes to believe. Politics is the Down and Dirty. Dirty, almost always. Down very frequently, aka the ultimate in cancel culture.
I try making that point in my essayObamagate: Who will be the first to fall?:
Does anyone really believe that the Dem Trump-hating fanatics will leave Trump alone when he is out of office? Please raise your hands. Pelosi is lusting in her cold-blooded heart to have D.J.T's head on a silver plate, covered with chocolate sauce.
Caitlin. This is a new game. This is a new president, one who doesn't believe in the Marquis of Queensbury rules. So wrong. Read my essay on Obamagate to get what I think is a more realistic assessment of the coming storm.
Politics is a Blood Sport.
You should leave your comment on her website
She has been getting comments like yours ever since Q came on the scene and she has thrown them back at them in her delightful way. I say this while admitting that I once followed the Q phenomenon but stopped when it came out who was behind the mask.
Yep. Did you see how Trump never went after Hillary for her emails after spending 2 years saying that he was going to lock her up? It seems that his supporters have given him a pass for not ending the wars and bringing the troops home.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Behind the Q mask is Q+
So what? This only tells you who is wielding the axe, not how the axe is to be used. This is all about the long game. Now the game is just getting interesting. Will there be perp walks? You think, like Caitlin, perhaps with justification that no perp walks occur. I disagree. Once again, this is not about policy. This is about politics.
Politics is a blood sport.
Is Jeff Sessions still wearing his white hat
even though he has been out of the picture for a few years? I remember when Q said that he just looked like he was working against Trump while in reality he was just biding his time to perp walk lots of bad actors very soon. Q has said numerous times since he started talking to people that something vague was going to happen on such and such date and yet those dates have come and gone.
As I said I followed Q for a year or more and I am glad I did because he directed to many websites that was blowing the lid on the Russia Gate farce and other topics. But then he went dark for a time after it was outed that it was intelligence fellows who were writing up the reports.
But the thing that should get people to see that Trump was never going to do what Q said he would is that he never went after Hillary for using her private email server. Or Comey for changing the wording that let her off being charged under the espionage act. Or any of the other actors that were always on the verge of being perp walked out of office.
I would LOVE to be wrong about this. It is long past time for the crooks at the top to be held accountable. I am keeping my mind open, but not to the point I will be disappointed if it doesn't happen.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Perhaps I engage in wishful thinking
If I am self-deluding, this is better than drinking myself into a daily stupor. As I've said: "I'll believe it when I see it".
Dum spiro, spero.
When Trump nominated Gina Haspel as CIA Director, how could
any reasonable being still believe that Donald Trump actually wanted to "drain the swamp", if indeed the D.C. swamp includes the Central Intelligence Agency? Or, perhaps, word never reached the bayou that John Durham (yes, the very same who has been sitting on his latest report into the CIA/FBI/DOJ) publicly sat on the finding of his earlier CIA torture report for a decade that it was Haspel who ordered the destruction of the torture tapes?
Has it not occurred to anyone else that Durham, who gladly allowed his 2010 report to remain classified -- it was never even be released to Congress -- is now repeating the same sort of disappearing act of the most incriminating evidence of interagency wrongdoing surrounding the seditious crimes of Operation Crossfire Hurricane?
For those who don't know, here's some background on that: https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/386583-doj-gives-congress-r...
As if that feigned concern wasn't a prime bit of Kabuki Theatre by Warner? We still have yet to read the 2010 Durham report.
And, consider this. There may never be a second Durham Report, and for all the resources reportedly given to him, Durham has apparently used his grand juries to indict only one defendant, a middle-level Justice Department lawyer: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/top-republican-there-wont-be-a-r...
Looks like Mueller isn't the only only fixer assigned to this case. You don't drain the swamp by putting swamp creatures in charge of the drainage operation.
Very good points here
I was unaware of the 2010 Durham report that still remains in a vault, likely to never see the light of day.
Good on you for being aware of all the shady predecessors implanted into the swamp by Commander Cheeto. Appointments of Haspell and Pompeo are ringing but quiet endorsements of Neocon theology.
Donald Trump is no hero, just more of the same.
“Politics is a blood sport.” Undoubtedly. Transformative and reformative? Never. That’s why revolutions keep popping up.
“The Lone Ranger” TV series was a psy-op, not based on reality.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Trump is a swamp creature
Other than his style there is nothing new here
“You cannot use the swamp to drain the swamp.”
This essay of Caitlin’s is the clearest overview of our predicament that I have read.
Decades of propaganda, emanating from D’s, R’s and their overlords, have us chasing our own tail in a mistaken belief that our deeply corrupt self serving power matrix will magically reform itself. That delusion is one of the most difficult to disabuse oneself of.
”Hope and Change”, “MAGA”, “RussiaGate”, “Drain the Swamp”; it is all Grade A 100% Bullshit.
Bottom up people, any meaningful change is going to be messy and difficult. No “good guys” are going to ride into town to save the day. It’s going to be up to the people to either force the needed changes or to pickup the shards of a failed world order and begin anew.
Our “leaders” are too busy trying to protect their crumbling privilege of power to help anyone else.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
“You cannot use the swamp to drain the swamp.”
That line stood out for me too. All real change comes from the ground up. It is way past time for a General Strike.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
We kind of have a general strike by default
That is why the billionaires are pushing so hard to "open back up." Because, not only will they not do any of the dying, without us, they don't make more billions. Viruses need a host.
"Trump failed to drain the swamp and the
gravy train keeps rolling."
Truth be told, Trump is as much a part of the swamp as the creatures that reside there. For three and a half years Trump has warned, teased, threatened and blustered but has accomplished little - exactly the same as has his manufactured alter ego, QAnon. It's time we realize there is no "draining of the swamp" with Trump just as there was no "three dimensional chess" with Obama. What you see is what you get.
America's "Democracy" is nothing but a political sham perpetrated with the help of a media circus every two years.
CrowdStrike admitted in early 2017
that they had no proof that Russia hacked the DNC servers and yet congress sat on that for 3 effing years while still letting people think that they did. We learned early on that the FBI never even looked at the DNC computers and just took CrowdStrike's word that they did, but they only gave the FBI a preliminary report not a full one.
And now that this info is out people who bought into Russia Gate hook, line and sinker are saying that any investigations into the origins of RG are not to be taken seriously. Even after Horowitz told congress that the FBI lied to the FISA court to get their warrants on Carter Page. How can those who were tuned to every breaking tidbit that showed Russia in a bad light not take that report seriously? Did it just not penetrate their brains because they had already made up their minds that Russia did indeed do the deed even though no proof was ever shown how they did it?
BTW why didn't Trump tell his NSA director to release the information that showed how Russia supposedly did something? He could have put this to bed right away, but just like Obama never released his birth certificate until 3 years later Trump let it be a huge distraction from what the government was doing. I remember saying this during Trump's first 100 days when the GOP was feverishly rolling back the regulations that Obama passed on his way out the door that hadn't gone into effect because he only did them at the end of his term when he knew that there was a chance the GOP would keep them from going into effect. No one covered what they did because they were caught up in the new shiny toy meant to keep it hidden from view.
Peter Strzok admitted during his testimony that the FBI had no proof that Flynn broke the law when he spoke to Kisylak and that he did it because Bibi asked him to ask Russia not to sanction Israel for their illegal settlements. This rarely gets mentioned. As for Flynn's phone call he had every right to talk to them because that is what happens during the transition to a new admin. Funny though how Reagan got away with talking to Iran about the hostages isn't it? I'd say that was a bigger effing deal then Flynn asking Russia not to respond until Trump took over.
And just after Mueller released his reports there was evidence that he knew that there was no collusion at the 6 months mark, but he held on to it and kept working on it for another year. And when Mueller refused to testify to congress outside what was in the report he refused to answer most questions because he didn't want to commit perjury. This is a BFD in my book.
I am thoroughly disgusted with people who put their faith in Mueller after he had lied to us on many, many things and especially that Saddam had WMDs. And they trusted the FBI and Brennan the CIA goon after many years of questioning everything they said.
What do they believe now with Obama Gate? It is just a ruse for Trump to dig up dirt on Biden and set his intelligence agencies on him. DOH!! This is exactly what Hillary Clinton did with Trump. It has already set precedent. Gahh. Wake up.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Second thoughts on your essay
The quotation is reasonable, reflective of past practices. But it seems to me that the vitriol against Trump is too personal and too hateful. Obama's henchmen never went after Dubya like they and their Clinonite allies are going after Trump. Trump may have significant justification to believe that "they" would not stop hounding him after his successor (presumably Democrat) is elected.
I am constantly aware of "when one strikes at the king, one best smite him".