All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Over at Conservative Treehouse, Sundance has a post on a leftover from the Mueller investigation that has a Russian Mata Hari who has been in solitary confinement because she is part of the Mueller cover-up operation and a CEO who was dating her resigning from the company he founded in order to get in front of the story that he is giving to the DOJ about these past hijinks.
Details Behind Patrick Byrne Allegations of FBI “Political Espionage”…
There’s no end to this stuff.
The dust has begun to settle and maybe there are a few worthwhile observations to make. So, let me ramble a bit here and let’s see if anything substantive emerges.
One small trend emerged. Several very different kinds of people on our side of the divide independently expressed that people responsible for the Russia-gate farce need to be brought to justice and punished. And they were shooting pretty high. Several wanted Obama convicted. I volunteered that I thought the latter possibility highly unlikely. I also said that to my way of thinking if a vindictive bastard like Trump didn’t go looking for payback it meant only one of two things. The first choice was that he had made a political calculation that retribution would hurt his chances of re-election. The other possibility is that he can’t because Barr won’t let it happen. My thought is that Barr is the firewall and Mueller only ended the investigation because it was understood that Barr would drop the curtain on the whole Russia-gate affair and all the players would be allowed to shuffle off to their next appointed posts. When I told this to my friends one of them said well then Trump can fire Barr and put in his own man. And I said that maybe Mitch McConnell won’t allow that to happen. And that made him quiet.
The other thing that occurs to me about where we are is that Trump is in an excellent position to start some trouble. My thought is he should tackle the Tech giants. Declaring Google, Facebook and Amazon monopolies should be simple. After all they are! Smashing those companies would be good for American business, civil liberties and for the Right. Even the Democrats are smart enough to know that these companies aren’t popular and if Trump crushes them, he can make sure we benefit from the slaughter.
And it’s time he started building some of that wall. Even if it’s just a symbolic portion. He needs to use that three billion and them come back and say he needs more. That’s what he has to run on. And he has to start moving on the rest of his agenda. Even if it means using the pen and the phone. And he needs to start calling out lunatics like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she starts talking about spending hundreds of trillions of dollars for rainbows and unicorns. It’ll be popular and it will be hilarious.
So, let’s see what my ramblings come to.
If the DOJ doesn’t go after the Russia-gate swamp creatures then in my estimation Barr is the stopper that ends the war without our side getting a chance to punch back. Or Trump doesn’t think it’s wise. But that seems less likely to me.
Trump has a good window this year to do some substantive things like go after the Tech Giants and build the Wall. If he takes no initiative then he would seem to be a spent force and that would be very bad for our side.
So, these are the two things to look at in the next few months. I’ll check back from time to time to see how this looks in the light of later developments. But these are my thoughts on where we are and how we’ll know where we are headed.
What do you think?
Hallelujah, the endless Chinese water torture is finally over and Mueller can go off to assume his new role as head of security in Hell.
I’ve summarized his points below.
1. Mueller did not indict Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, or other people whose purported legal jeopardy was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year.
2. Mueller did not charge anyone in the Trump campaign or circle with conspiring with Russia to fix the 2016 election.
3. Mueller did not subpoena the president.
4. The president did not fire Mueller.
5. The president did not interfere with the Mueller investigation.
So here’s the question I have, when will the rest of the rats be cleared out of the FBI and the rest of the DOJ? And when will Comey and McCabe be indicted?
Plenty of interesting things are going on in the world. Apparently Never-Trumping isn’t as popular or lucrative as some might have thought. The Weekly Standard, led by Bill Kristol and sticking to his NeverTrump platform seems to be going out of business. Well, it’s hard to generate any sympathy for them. I used to read their magazine about fifteen years ago but they never seemed interested in forwarding the goals of the conservative movement they claimed to represent. Farewell Bill.
The Trump haters are starting to whine that Mueller’s investigation doesn’t seem to have much to show for all the blather that’s been done over the last couple of years. It’s still too soon to tell but I’ll take it as a good sign if the true believers are feeling short-changed.
And word from France is that the yellow vest movement is getting bigger than just a revolt against the idiotic carbon tax on fuel. It sounds like a full-fledged populist revolt is imminent.
These three news items are relatively unrelated. But what they share is a pain for the Left. The items about the Weekly Standard and the Yellow Vest revolt shows everyday people unwilling to support the leftist narrative. Most conservatives aren’t going to pay to read Bill Kristol trash President Trump. And the working and middle class French aren’t going to pay through the nose to support climate-change propaganda.
And the angst about the Mueller investigation shows that those in the know, know that there’s no there there. (See what I did there?)
I’m still waiting to see if any swamp draining gets done this week. I guess, to be fair, I can give them a week to make up for the GHWB funeral circus to end. But if nothing comes of it I’ll be sorely disappointed in the President over what I’ll take to be a bluffing Tweet.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve allowed my enthusiasm to become unbridled. Everything is good, the sun is bright and shiny and I’m whistling a happy tune. All’s right with the world in this best of all possible worlds where Donald Trump is King. And that tells me that it’s time that I should be, in the inimitable words of Fagin “reviewing the situation.” What could go wrong?
Let’s walk through it. The Mid-Term Elections are upon us. The whole Blue Wave scare is just that, a scare tactic meant to produce FUD. So, far from retaking the Senate, odds are very good that the Republicans will add at least a couple of seats and very likely a few more. But the House is a very different matter. Redistricting in Pennsylvania and elsewhere and retiring Republican incumbents mean that there are plenty of races that could go to the Democrats. So, while there may not be any groundswell of Democrat sentiment it’s entirely possible that the Democrats could take the House by a slim margin.
And although he has been quiet for the last couple of weeks, the Mueller investigation may very well be sitting on a bombshell either of a direct or indirect nature to the Russia investigation. He may be waiting to try and do maximum damage to the House races and thereby allow a Democrat House to vote for impeachment against the President.
Finally, there’s the X factor. Things have been going along swimmingly. The economy is growing at a phenomenal rate and all of the President’s trade and foreign affairs initiatives have been amazingly successful. What if something changes? Basically, the X factor is anything big going south. Let’s say the stock market crashes.
Now, anyone of these three events is a major problem. Losing the House or fighting a Mueller or dealing with a Wall Street meltdown is a serious situation. But let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume that a Mueller bombshell causes a Blue Wave that scares the Stock Market into a crash.
Well, that’s not such a bright and shiny day anymore is it? In fact, that’s almost a replay of 2008. The only difference is that the 2020 election would still be two years away and the President would be Donald Trump instead of George W. Bush. And while I don’t trivialize the severity of such an onslaught I still think that who is performing damage control is more important than the exact details of the crisis.
And one more thing is different. I am no longer invested in trying to win over the other side. If they already have the numerical advantage in the voting population then the sooner I know the better. Donald Trump has given us a breather with his success. There’s even a chance that he can put together a coalition of people who want the traditional American way of life to survive. But it’s far from a certainty that he can pull it off. But I’ve come to terms with this situation. I no longer depend on us winning. In fact, adapting to a permanent underground status would be almost easier. At least it would solidify my survival tactics and start me moving in the direction needed to protect myself from the consequences of that sadder but less uncertain world.
So that’s the worst case. And you know what. I’m still good. I can deal with that. I’ll adapt and thrive. I’ll help those I care about to adapt and thrive. And that’s the worst case. Anything lesser will be even easier. I’ll be even better. So as far as my sanity check, my enthusiasm is still unbridled.
Bring it.
Several months back President Trump stated that Mueller’s investigation must end before September in order to avoid interfering with the midterms. Well, there has been a little bit of back and forth about September 7th versus September 1st, but for all intents and purposes here we are. There are all kinds of rumbling in the media. The most tempting headlines come from politico and the New York Times so I skipped looking at those. Instead I’ll use my own marvelous logic to analyze the situation.
Tomorrow is September 1st and it’s a Saturday. Saturday is typically the perfect day to do something that you don’t want maximally covered in the news. What better day to fire Mueller! Do I think this will happen? I give it a 20% likelihood.
What I do hear, is that Giuliani is compiling a report on the deficiencies of the Mueller investigation. He is going to highlight the partisan decisions in the choice of targets. This will allow him to characterize the investigation as biased and therefore illegitimate. And this I assume will be the basis for pulling the plug on Mueller. I figure it’ll take at least a few weeks to unfold this little passion play. But I don’t imagine once it gets started that it’ll have to be much beyond September 15th before some definitive action will occur. My take on this is that it’s a 50% likelihood. It’s as likely as not to happen within the next two weeks.
And finally, what is the likelihood that nothing will happen until after the election. Well, previously I would have said very likely. But I think things seem to be shifting. That is reflected in a 30% likelihood. I think Mueller has done a lot of damage and seems to be intent on poisoning the mid-terms. President Trump recently said that Jeff Sessions will remain until after the mid-terms. I no longer think that’s true. I think it’s as likely as not that he’ll fire Sessions and begin a counter-attack against Mueller and company before the mid-terms.
Now what would that look like? I assume that firing Mueller, Sessions and Rosenstein will be just the tip of the iceberg. He must appoint a prosecutor to start actions against all the co-conspirators. He must begin proceedings to appoint replacements in the Justice Department and FBI. He must provide public information to the US citizenship and he must do all this without panicking the cowardly sheep in the Congress.
So, all of that’s fine. Good stuff. But look at the risk associated. The screeching from the media could be enough to throw the mid-terms to the Dems, even the Senate. So this is an enormous risk. Then why do I think it’s more likely than not that he will move before the midterms? Because Mueller is going to come out with a late October, maybe even early November surprise to absolutely sway the election. And I think Trump is a risk taker. I think he will roll the dice to prevent Mueller from calling the shots.
We definitely live in interesting times. If you have an opinion, leave it in the comments.
Previously I have alluded to the theory that President Trump was playing a very high stakes game of chicken with Robert Mueller. Extending that theory to all the latest news on all the various swamp creatures being heard from in the last few days, I now think that the November Election is the crucial event around which all these machinations revolve. And I think there are only a few scenarios that are likely.
These are my guesses as the most likely scenarios for where we are heading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Dramatis Personae: President Trump – (PT);
Vice President Pence – (VPP)
Scene 1- 8am White House West Wing; Oval Office
PT – Mike. Mike. PENCE!!!! Where the hell are you?
VPP – Right here Mr. President.
PT – Mike, I can’t take it anymore. That rat Cohen talking to Mueller is the end. I’ve got to pull the plug on that stiff.
VPP – Mr. President, that could be a disaster for the mid-terms.
PT – I don’t care. I’ve had it with this nonsense. Once I fire Mueller I’ll have him indicted six ways to Sunday for all kinds of crap we’ve already got on him and then I’ll be able to get going on important stuff like that bill to move the UN from New York to Newark. It’s such a subtle difference in pronunciation that no one will notice until the carjackings start piling up.
VPP – But Jeff Sessions said he’d resign if you fire Mueller.
PT -Who cares? He’s utterly useless. I had to order him to discontinue Comey’s phone plan four times before he finally got around to it. Besides I’ve got a great new Attorney General lined up already. And he’s between gigs so we’ll get him cheap. Steven Seagal.
VPP – But Mr. President, isn’t Steven Seagal under investigation for rape?
PT – He’s assured me that it’s fake news. Besides he was a sheriff down in Texas so he knows about the law. With him as the AG we’ll finally start cleaning out the swamp. We’ve discussed what kind of prosecutions we can get against CNN reporters who try to ask questions without being picked by me to speak. He figures that a ten-year sentence would be fair.
VPP – Wait, no! You can’t do that. Freedom of the Press is in the Bill of Rights.
PT – This has nothing to do with Freedom of the Press. It’s about jumping ahead in a line. No one likes a line jumper. The American people hate a line jumper and they will applaud the punishing of line jumpers. I’m hoping I can get that worm Jim Acosta to talk out of turn. Seagal says he’ll personally make the arrest by body slamming Acosta to the ground and tossing him out of the ring, I mean the Press Briefing Room.
VPP – Mr. President, please trust me, there is no court in the country that would even consider prosecuting reporters for shouting out a question out of turn at a press conference.
PT – Mike that’s just the kind of defeatist thing that JEB! or Romney would say. Now Seagal is due here in a couple of hours so be ready to brainstorm with us.
VPP – But I’m sure he’s about to be indicted.
PT – Fine. I’ll just pardon him and we can move on. Now we’re gonna want to decide whether to just fire the whole FBI or also terminate all those alphabet soup agencies, you know, the CIA, the NSA, blah, blah, blah. You know clear out all those losers.
VPP – Mr. President, that’s impossible. Those agencies are critical parts of the law enforcement and security apparatus.
PT – Mike, you sound a little hysterical. I think you should take a few weeks off and see if this job is for you. If you’re not up to the challenge I hear that Chuck Norris is between gigs, except for that infomercial for the exercise machine with Christy Brinkley and those other old losers. We could probably get him cheap and he could help Seagal drag Acosta down to the lock-up. I figure they could even rough him up a good bit before handing him over to the police. Acosta has said some pretty mean things about me in the past. It would serve him right if they tuned him up a little bit.
VPP – Sir, this is insane.
PT – Look Mike I’m bored. Something’s got to give. Either you figure out how to end this Mueller thing right away or I’m bringing in Seagal.
VPP – Very well, Mr. President. Fire Mueller and accept Jeff Sessions’ resignation. I guess we can trust to your luck to get us through the ensuing Impeachment Trial.
PT – That’s the spirit Mike. After all Bill Clinton was impeached and it didn’t stop him did it?
VPP – Wow. That’s a stunning sentiment.
PT – Cheer up Mike. If worst comes to worst you’ll be President. That won’t be so bad will it?
VPP – Actually Mr. President, after serving with you for the last year or so, I’m not sure I want to be President anymore.
PT – Suit yourself. If Norris isn’t available there’s always Dolph Lundgren. I hear he’s between gigs and we could probably get him cheap. Oh wait he’s a russky that wouldn’t look good.
VPP – Actually he’s Swedish. He just played a Russian in Rocky IV.
PT – Whatever. Now get me Sly Stallone on the phone. I hear he’s between gigs and we could get him to be FBI Director for almost nothing.
VPP – Oy vey.
I was figuring it would be him. But this might just be a sad attempt to escape without saying anything substantive. To be continued.
Fired FBI Director Andrew McCabe Requests Criminal Immunity in exchange for Congressional Testimony…
The Conservative Treehouse has a pretty thorough treatment of what President Trump’s order to investigate political motivations in the DOJ’s Trump campaign spying effort means. I have to say I thought Trump and Mueller were playing chicken with each other. Maybe we’ve moved past that. Maybe this now has to be resolved by someone going to prison. Or several somebodies. Unless Mueller has a smoking gun (which seems very unlikely) it looks like McCabe, Comey and company are about to be charged with criminal charges. The thing that occurs to me is that at some point somebody is going to sing to save his own neck. None of these guys wants to go to prison. My guess is McCabe but I am only looking in from the dark outside. Maybe it’ll be Comey or Bruce Ohr or Peter Strzok. But whoever sings first will get the best deal. We live in interesting times. Let’s hope they don’t get much more interesting than they already are.