December 15, 2019

"The left keens that the president is destroying our sacred institutions and jeopardizing our national security. But..."

"... for many Americans, the events of the last week prove that Trump is right to be cynical about a rigged system and deep-state elites. The inspector general’s report about the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation offered a hideous Dorian Gray portrait of the once-vaunted law enforcement agency. As Charlie Savage wrote in The Times, the report uncovered “a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process.” The F.B.I. run by Comey and McCabe was sloppy, deceitful and cherry-picking — relying on nonsense spread by Christopher Steele.... Unfortunately, this climate of confusion and cynicism allows Trump to prosper. He did not come to Washington to clean up the tainted system; he came to bathe in it."

From Maureen Dowd's new column, "Trump’s Bad. Sadly, He’s Not Alone/Another wild week for the president, but does it lead to rejection or re-election?" (NYT).

Is it true that Trump "did not come to Washington to clean up the tainted system"? He was always saying "drain the swamp." You might argue that he's no good at cleaning things up or that he's messing things up in his own way, but I don't see the support for the notion that his intention in becoming President was "to bathe in" the swamp. Didn't he visualize himself as a hero who had observed things for decades and felt confident that he could apply his insight and business acumen to fixing everything?


113 comments:

rhhardin said...

Trump's corruption rubs off on the FBI. How else would it get there.

Shouting Thomas said...

The left wants to disband the electoral college, negate the First and Second Amendments, prevent enforcement of U.S. borders, discard the very idea of citizenship, divvy everything up by race and sex, and institute a command economic system to prevent the End of the World by climate change.

The left has refused for 2-1/2 years to accept the results of the 2016 elections and is trying to undermine the 2020 presidential election with an impeachment clearly timed and designed to bury the criminal acts of the FBI in spying on Trump's campaign.

Who is destroying "our sacred institutions and jeopardizing our national security"?

Wilbur said...

AA, you consistently puncture the Bias Veil under which the Left operates, in a logical, cruelly neutral way. Impressive.

Shouting Thomas said...

And, isn't Prez Trump "fixing" everything?

My takeaway from the wild lies the Democrats have fabricated to cover up the Bidens' extortion and bribery schemes is that these foreign bribery scams are SOP in Congress.

McConnell's determination to avoid exposing the Biden's dirty laundry in the Senate tells me the foreign bribery scams are bipartisan. It would indeed be "throwing a grenade on the Senate floor" to expose that dirt.

So, Trump's election has shown a spotlight on massive, bipartisan corruption. Whether it can be cleaned up is another matter.

Ralph L said...

I haven't gotten over the 1995 scandal of the Republican files the FBI sent to the Clinton WH. If top FBI people had been flogged or gone to jail as they should have, the Hillary email whitewash and Crossfire Hurricane would have played out differently.

There is no way that was a low-level, business-as-usual decision to send them. Starr failed to indict anyone, and if Director Freeh punished anyone, it was in secret.

danoso said...

I dunno, I guess this is progress. We seem to be at the bargaining phase. The corruption of the FBI and our intelligence services is unarguable, but it’s still Trumps fault. He had it coming, or something.

Big Mike said...

The F.B.I. run by Comey and McCabe was sloppy, deceitful and cherry-picking ...

And the FBI run by Mueller before them, or he’d have shut down the Russia Collusion investigation almost immediately if he had had the tiniest shred of integrity. (Nor would be have written that he took issue with Barr’s interpretation of the report, only to have to back down when Barr called him on it.)

And the movie “Richard Jewell” reminds us that the FBI under Louis Freeh was not the FBI portrayed by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

It’s important to remember that J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of the FBI in 1924 as a reformer to clean up a thoroughly corrupt agency. We are overdue to clean it up again.

Gandydancer said...

Of course this is Dowd's TDS speaking. What does it even mean to "bathe in corruption"?

As to whether Trump is good at cleaning the swamp... Of course not. Once elected his first impulse was to cozy up to GOP swamp creatures, a number of whom have rewarded him with swamp-defending bites. Most recently, Christopher Wray (nominated June 2017), laughably defending the FBI against Trump.

And Horowitz (an Obama holdover) still had a job until he recently quit, never mind multiple failures, most recently defending the "predication" for opening the investigation of the Trump campaign as meeting the "low threshold" for doing so, never mind FBI guidance that such an investigation was (per his own report) a "Sensitive Investigative Matter", which looks like cognitive dissonance to me. Or determined swampishness.

Big Mike said...

If Dowd could stop being lazy long enough yo get fifty miles outside of New Yawk and into flyover country, she’d realize the answer to her question pretty quickly. Impeachment has laid the biggest egg since George III and the Stamp Act.

exhelodrvr1 said...

This clearly didn't start with Comey and McCabe. Most likely the stuff never stopped after Hoover.

Ann Althouse said...

"We seem to be at the bargaining phase."

Ha ha. I had the 5 stages of grief in my first draft of this post. I thought Trump haters were arriving at stage 5, acceptance. At least Dowd is. Her "left" though, the "keeners," are only at 2, anger.

Fernandinande said...

Unfortunately, this climate of confusion and cynicism allows Trump to prosper.

If only there were some evidence of that premise and conclusion.

Trump must be the most scrupulously honest businessman around since he's survived years of intense "investigation" by a troops of deep-state enemies.

Big Mike said...

The left has refused for 2-1/2 years to accept the results of the 2016 elections

@Shouting Thomas, nor is this a phenomenon limited to American leftists. I read that there are large demonstrations going on in London with people chanting “Not our Prime Minister” despite Boris Johnson winning a landslide of historic proportions.

wendybar said...

I don't trust any of them anymore. Why should I, (or we)??? They have abused their power, and they are still walking free. I didn't want to vote for Trump, but given the choice....NOW, I will happily vote for him again, because he is doing better than I ever anticipated especially with the way the Democrats have lied and spread propaganda. The FBI and CIA were actively working with Democrats to bring down this man who was duly elected. They belong in Prison....and until that happens, there will never be unity..EVER! I will NEVER vote for a Democrat in my life again after this.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Dowd is hack, a toady, a courtier. Like the nevertrumpers, the line is, if Trump is right about something, its by accident. If he proposes good legislation it is because the "right people" are providing him guidance. Trump is a madman and an idiot. Anything good happening during his tenure is happenstance.

Temujin said...

I'd say he's (Trump) done more to expose the mediocrity and the level of corruption in our government than any previous President in my lifetime. These are mediocre people put in positions of high regard. Whether by his own design or by his sheer will of not playing along and bending to their threats, he's brought them all to the surface and shone a light on the who and what. He's not draining the swamp yet. But he's showing us who and what needs to be done. We, as a people, are not going to just wait and hope Trump cleans the swamp. We will have to do that work ourselves, through successive elections.

But this thing is not done and there will be heads rolling before it gets through. Also, Trump is not done, and a second term will be a time for some getting even. It will be delightful.

Hagar said...

relying on nonsense spread by Christopher Steele....

I still say the dossier was concocted right there in Washington, DC and any spreading Steele did was as requested by the CIA/FBI swamp creatures. It was their own fiction they used to justify their FISA applications.

As for exposing life in the swamp, I would say the creatures have done a right good job of that themselves. I do not know that Trump had any idea of what he was getting into when he first decided that, What the heck, I can do this job as well as any of these bozos!, registered as a "Republican," and entered as candidate for the Presidency.

stevew said...

He did go to and arrive in Washington to, among other things, drain the swamp. But I think what Dowd inadvertently gets right is that it wasn't the FBI, CIA, and Executive Branch that Trump considered to be the swamp.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Temujin nails it. So many of these swamp rats are Clintonistas spawn. Second and third generations deep. Mediocrity writ large. How refreshing to see Florida's call for civics reinstatement in High School curriculum. Doing the correct thing? Only when forced. Like the Judge ordering 240,000 voters removed from the rolls in WI, the unsealed vote bags in Detroit and the illegal's voting in CA, etc, etc, on to the White House. Not a scintilla of corruption, yeah, lets run with that.

Temujin said...

More swamp draining:
Trump breaking up departments out of touch with their jobs

Skeptical Voter said...

As usual MoDo has it wrong. Trump may be "bathing in the swamp". But his bathing in the swamp started in a fashion like a 275 pound guy doing a "cannonball" leap into a swimming pool. Yes, he's in the water, but he created a heck of a splash as he arrived.

My vote in 2016 was "not Hillary". My vote in 2020 will be "for Trump". These rascals that can't accept the results of an election are what my Swiss friends call an "unverschaemter Bengal". That's not an unashamed tiger---it's an unashamed brat.

Original Mike said...

"I thought Trump haters were arriving at stage 5, acceptance. At least Dowd is. Her "left" though, the "keeners," are only at 2, anger."

No one at Stage 5 could write "the report uncovered “a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process.”".

Those weren't "errors". They were lies.

I think danoso is right. Bargaining.

Sally327 said...

I don't think Trump came to DC to wallow in the mire but I think it's possible that Ivanka and Jared might have had that in mind. I see Jared especially as fairly opportunistic, not that it's necessarily a bad thing.

I would give Maureen credit for noting that a lot of the current muck is a product of the Obama years but she only does that in the mildest sort of way and only to hang it all on Trump. Plus I think she's part of the broken system.

Leland said...

I still say the dossier was concocted right there in Washington, DC and any spreading Steele did was as requested by the CIA/FBI swamp creatures. It was their own fiction they used to justify their FISA applications.

I agree. If not exactly that way, then it was the international socialites hanging out at bars swapping their fiction stories that were told so many times that some started to believe them. Steele was just a very willing participant scribe.

The original premise has always been my problem. Nobody has provided any evidence that Putin would want Trump to win. One exception, that Putin wanted to sow distrust in our election system, which is what the Democrats have done, not Trump.

Hagar said...

I suspect the Clintons' corrupt collections of cash from donors for their and the Party's election campaigns are minor compared to their collections of cash from the US Treasury for personal enrichment.

n.n said...

Cautiously optimistic. We'll see what happens when the witch hunters and warlock judges are no longer viable, and the fascists persist without the cover of journolistic bullhorns, social media steering, and activist threats to people on baseball fields, dining in restaurants, at home, in court, etc.

Original Mike said...

"I still say the dossier was concocted right there in Washington, DC and any spreading Steele did was as requested by the CIA/FBI swamp creatures. It was their own fiction they used to justify their FISA applications."

Wouldn't surprise me. I hope we find out.

Fernandinande said...

I had the 5 stages of grief in my first draft of this post.

Those "5 stages" are more like a parlor game than a useful analysis.

When we had our dog killed I skipped all the stages except "depression" and "acceptance", which occurred at the same time; same thing for dead parents, except no real depression cuz they were quite old and had a full life etc.

M Jordan said...

Maureen Dodd’s a mean girl with a gift for snark. That’s all. Every column is a display of her gift so that wannabes like Kathleen Parker, who is truly minor leagues next to Dowd, can study to learn to up their game. What you learn from reading a a Dowd column is never the topic itself but how the present mean girls social unit is presently coiled. IOW, you learn what the popular kids are saying.

She is clever and funny and insightful in a way. But her talents are all used for such ugly reasons: smearing with a feminine smirk.

Chuck said...

Having read this column in The Bulwark just a couple of weeks ago -- https://thebulwark.com/the-swampiest-swamp-in-the-history-of-swamps/ -- it got me to Googling the words "Trump" and "swampiest" together. I never even go to the end of all of the pages of all of the stories documenting how the Trump Administration had shown itself to be the "swampiest" presidential administration in modern times.

But I did love the currency of that one from The Bulwark.

This is the Althouse m.o.; doing a feelings/impressions critique of a breezy opinion piece from a Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, while avoiding the mass of evidence about actual corruption in the Trump Administration. Must still be the "Denial" phase for Trump cultists.

Mike Sylwester said...

None of us should be finding fault in Maureen Dowd.

She is one of the liberals, and the liberals are our country's smartest people.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

A montage of the media lying to you.

Media: The Steele Dossier (paid for by Hillary) is true!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Is it true that Trump "did not come to Washington to clean up the tainted system"? He was always saying "drain the swamp." You might argue that he's no good at cleaning things up or that he's messing things up in his own way, but I don't see the support for the notion that his intention in becoming President was "to bathe in" the swamp. Didn't he visualize himself as a hero who had observed things for decades and felt confident that he could apply his insight and business acumen to fixing everything?

He came to Washington, as he comes to all places, to crash parties. He doesn't care about what happens post-crash. His just sees a selective institution that has the good sense to exclude him, ridicule him, shun him - as most do - and he resents that personally and wants to show it up. "Drain the swamp" was just a catchphrase in getting there. Anyone who bankrupts five businesses funded off his daddy's funds who persists in believing he has good "insight and business acumen" should not be talked about as if they are psychologically undisturbed or intact or have a vision worth examining in the normal sense.

Josephbleau said...

I am surprised at Savage’s quote, on the face pretty realistic. What gets me is that the tier of leadership that created this farce of an investigation is our first team for opposing real enemy intelligence operations that protect the US interest. Why so stupid? How did we win the Cold War? Were the guys that created the Ukrainian coup on vacation the week crossfire hurricane started? We need to get some pros in the FBI and CIA instead of Abbot and Costello.

How does CNN maintain any face having liars and forgers on their payroll.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

O My God. Chuck, you keep being you. Cause everyone knows that the Bulwark is a hive of Trump cultists.

Maillard Reactionary said...

AA: Have you considered the possibility that Maureen Down is just a moron who will say anything when faced with a deadline?

That would preclude the need for careful analysis, but perhaps that's the point.

Gk1 said...

"Dowd column is never the topic itself but how the present mean girls social unit is presently coiled" This. I could only read a few paragraphs of this dreck but was struck by the tone that somehow she knew the FBI, Collusion etc. was a scam. Bollocks! She happily spread the same manure for 3 years. Fuck her.

Michael K said...

McConnell's determination to avoid exposing the Biden's dirty laundry in the Senate tells me the foreign bribery scams are bipartisan. It would indeed be "throwing a grenade on the Senate floor" to expose that dirt.

I agree with this. CTH has been speculating that McConnell has been plotting with CoC Donohue to weaken the Trump tariffs on China. We'll see if any of that materializes.

The great story is that BLM employees are quitting rather than leave DC. This should be the agenda for the second term. He can't fire them but he can disperse them.

MBunge said...

Despite the reflexive ORANGE MAN BAD invocations that Dowd throws in to prove her fidelity to the True Faith, this is an encouraging sign. The Democrats, NeverTrumpers, and the media went all in on pretending the IG report was completely good news for them. That someone like Dowd not only saw through that but felt comfortable enough to say so publicly proves their efforts not only failed but were counterproductive.

Mike

Rory said...

"I still say the dossier was concocted right there in Washington, DC"

We'll also eventually find out that the Ukrainian call was a setup to get him to say "Biden."

bagoh20 said...

The logic of theft continues down this lame path that fighting corruption is wrong if it makes the reformer look good. I can't believe how many think that makes sense. It's like criticizing a fireman for just showing off when he runs into a burning house. Yea, it makes him look good, and I'm sure he likes that, he may even bath in it, but that's exactly how it should work. Do you expect him do it if he knows you will criticize him for it. Guess what? You do critisize Trump for it and he still takes the risks anyway. One of the very few true public servants in politics - someone who makes real personal sacrifices to improve the nation's future. He sacrifices fortune, ridicule, and outright hatred 24/7 to do what a President should do. Maybe you as a citizen might think about what you should sacrifice, like your partisan hobby horse for example.

Martha said...

Wendybar is right. You can’t trust any of them ever again—the FBI, the CIA....and the MEDIA. Especially the MEDIA. CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes—still misrepresenting what is in the IG REPORT. Still not covering news detrimental to their worldview.

bagoh20 said...

Chuck, if there was any real evidence of all that rather than just "stories", then the Dems wouldn't need to be trying to impeach him on the transparently thin charges they are after running through a dozen other disproved charges for the last three years including an unprecedented effort by partisans in the FBI to find or make up shit. Where's the beef?

Anonymous said...

Chuck: Having read this column in The Bulwark just a couple of weeks ago...

...Must still be the "Denial" phase for Trump cultists.


Links to The Bulwark to support his views; complains about "cultists".

Say what you will about him, but I don't think a single one of our crazier resident lefties ever posts anything approaching the sheer poetic holy-fool loveliness of our Chuck's unintended ironies.

narciso said...


Well baby steps

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/12/ode_to_the_constitution_and_the_common_man.html

Birkel said...

Althouse,
It's your blog but I might consider one particular option:

Never leave a set of racist fopdoodle lies as the last comment on any post while moderation is in effect. The number of people who will feel compelled to refute Xis bull shit is too high.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

You’re looking for a shred of truth in a MoDo column? How quaint. We’re not looking for cursory acknowledgement of the evil apparatus Comey turned the FBI into, were looking for any ally that can help root out the corruption that allowed such perversion of process in the DOJ, FBI, FISA court and NatSec/State bureaucrats. Deep State or Swamp, how do we reform it?

alanc709 said...

Project much, Chuck? "while avoiding the mass of evidence about actual corruption" would seem to describe the state of affairs in the Judiciary Committee. But, they were doing the work you want done, of impeaching Trump for being Trump, so that's ok. As for the Bulwark, they don't even pretend to be unbiased.

narciso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mary Beth said...

I had the 5 stages of grief in my first draft of this post.

The 5 stages of grief makes me think of "All That Jazz", which is only on DVD/Blu-Ray and not available for streaming. This and the democrats continued assault on Trump makes me sad. One of those two things also makes me angry.

Narayanan said...

Going with bathing analogy my Q :
Is the Constitution drain hole or drain plug?

rcocean said...

SO, even Dowd is admitting Trump was right about being spied on and lied about. The damage to the intelligence agencies has been massive. Who knew they were staffed with partisan Democrats (some posing as Life Long Republicans) willing to abuse their power to stop a President they didn't like?

Remember when 500 FBI Confidential files on Senators and Congressmen, mysteriously ended up in the Clinton white house? That was chicken feed compared to Leakin' Lying' James Comey and dirty cop McCabe.

rcocean said...

TO to remind everyone that if Hillary had won, we'd still be believing the WaPo/NYT spin, that James Comey was an upright Honorable FBI guy, a "Life Long Republican" just doing an honest job, assisted by stalwart lawman McCabe.

rcocean said...

Funny how no one wants to investigate Obama or Lynch's role in this. Nope lets just impeach Trump for non-existent 'High crimes'

Bruce Hayden said...

“The F.B.I. run by Comey and McCabe was sloppy, deceitful and cherry-picking ...”

“And the FBI run by Mueller before them, or he’d have shut down the Russia Collusion investigation almost immediately if he had had the tiniest shred of integrity. (Nor would be have written that he took issue with Barr’s interpretation of the report, only to have to back down when Barr called him on it.)”

I suspect that the portrait painted of Mueller is going to look substantially worse, when everything is out in the open.

As most everyone here knows, NSA Dir Adm Rogers, discovered in March, 2016, that their databases of everyone’s emails, bank records, telephone records, etc was being heavily searched by FBI contractors. In his audit of the six month period from 11/15 through 5/16, 85% of the thousands of queries being made were by these FBI contractors. Worse maybe, repeated queries were being made with the same search criteria over different periods of time, indicating that people were being actively tracked by these contractors. It has long been suggested that Fusion GPS was one of these contractors (e.g. Cohen in Prague).

Where this gets interesting is that this appears to have been going on since 2012, and was approved, if not designed, by the top of the Intelligence Community, which at the time was headed by DNI Clapper, CIA Dir Brennan, DOD Sec Carter, and, surprise, surprise, FBI Dir Robert Mueller. The same Bob Mueller who would be suggested as Comey’s replacement when he was fired for, among other things, lying to Trump, and the same Bob Mueller who ran the special counsel investigation into Russian Collusion, which actively prevented OIG and Congressional investigation of the SpyGate scandal with that Lawfare assisted aggressive misinterpretation of that Obstruction statute that essentially treated investigations into anything related to their investigation (including the entirety of Crossfire Hurricane) as Obstruction.

And that very strongly suggests that the reason that Bob Mueller was picked as the SC, when they couldn’t put him back as FBI Director, was that he had been involved, from the very beginning, in the FBI allowing political allies of the Obama Administration usupervised access to NSA’s extensive databases, greatly expanded after the attacks on 9/11/01. He had to have personally approved the procedure changes in 2012 that allowed this illegal access. Clapper, Brennan, Carter, etc could trust that he would cover their asses for their roles in illegal spying for political purposes, because he had been the one who had authorized a lot of the abuse.

There have long been suggestions that the whole Crossfire Hurricane (and thus Mueller) investigation, along with the Steele Dossier, was for just this purpose - hiding the extensive 702(16)(17) FISA abuse by the Obama Administration for political purposes. And that Steele’s real purpose was just to launder supposedly through his old Kremlin contacts much of the illegally obtained NSA database query results derived through illegal FBI 702 searching by Obama aligned contractors. And, interestingly, that the real reason that they so desperately needed Title I FISA coverage on someone at least remotely involved with the Trump campaign (very high probability that Carter Page was the backup after they failed with George Popadopolis), is that those Title I warrants would cover for the illegal 702 searches that were terminated by Rogers in late spring of 2016. Title I FISA warrants allow investigators to go back in time, and thus purportedly covers the results from the illegal 702 searches of Trump and his campaign.

Ultimately I expect some better answers. I think that Denis Nunes knows a lot of the answers here. What is going to be interesting is discovery in the civil rights suit filed recently by Carter Page for the spying on him. Esp since not that much spying seems to have actually occurred, esp after Trump took office.

Michael K said...

Project much, Chuck? "while avoiding the mass of evidence about actual corruption"

I skip Chuck now routinely. Even the most TDS NT over at Ricochet has shut up and is almost invisible.

John henry said...

And meanwhile, as the circus rolls on PDJT had a pretty great week:


An agreement on a new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal.

A new budget including more than $1.3 billion for a border wall and blocks a government shutdown.

House approval of the U.S. Space Force, a brand-new branch of the military.

Government family leave that will be a model for a proposal for the public.

Tentative agreement on trade with China.

Approval of Trump’s 50th federal appeals judge.

Confirmation of a new Food and Drug Administration chief.

The signing of a pro-Israel anti-Semitism executive order.


Plus, advisers noted, Wall Street hit another record,

Via Insty.

Not bad for a president in the process of being impeached. Not bad at all. These accomplishments would make a pretty good quarter or even year for some presidents.

John Henry

John henry said...

From Ann's post, quoting Dowd:

the once-vaunted law enforcement agency

The FBI was born corrupt and has been corrupt for 100 years now. As Big Mike said:

It’s important to remember that J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of the FBI in 1924 as a reformer to clean up a thoroughly corrupt agency. We are overdue to clean it up again.

That last sentence makes it sound like you think he did clean it up. He didn't. What he did do was focus on cleaning up the image. He would lean heavily, and I mean very heavily, on any newspaper, magazine, TV show, movie or anyone else who portrayed the smallest doubt about the purity of the FBI.

The FBI of the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s was every bit as corrupt as the FBI of the past 20 years that we are seeing in the current fiasco. Nothing has changed in the past 100 years.

This is not to say that there are not some good people in the FBI. Perhaps even the majority. The FBI does a lot of good work. The majority of Playboy's pages were dedicated to classy editorial content rather than nekkid wimmen too.

I don't know if the FBI can be reformed or cleaned up. It was born corrupt and has corruption in its very bones. I agree that we do need some sort of national law agency. I don't agree that the FBI should be or can be it.

John Henry

Bruce Hayden said...

Some more background fr my earlier rant this morning: Obama Era Political Surveillance, and The Dual Purpose of Fusion GPS…

With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.

Working with a timeline, but also referencing origination material in 2015/2016 – CTH hopes to show how the program(s) interacted and operated. A full review explains an evolution from The IRS Files in 2010 to the FISA Files in 2016.

More importantly, the assembly of government reports and public records now indicates a political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012.

The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, became the primary process. We start by reviewing the established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26th, 2017; and explain the details within the FISC opinion...

John henry said...

One of the things the FBI does that doesn't get enough play is (apparent) entrapment of terrorists. They find some guy (it's always a guy) who is a bit stupid, disaffected and susceptible. They they convince him that it would be a good idea to blow up something. Then they give him a fake bomb, tell him to plant it. Then they give him a fake trigger and arrest him when he presses the button.

Then they trumpet how THEY SAVED AMERICA FROM ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK!!!

They seem to do this regularly, some think on a 6 week cycle.

It stinks.

Yes, I want the FBI et al to stop terrorist attacks. I do not want them creating phony attacks just so they can say they stopped them. (And ask for more funding)

John Henry

John henry said...


Blogger Michael K said...

The great story is that BLM employees are quitting rather than leave DC. This should be the agenda for the second term. He can't fire them but he can disperse them.

By dispersing them he is firing them, Michael. Supposedly only 15% are agreeing to the move. I suspect that it probably low, but it will still probably be a lot.

There were a bunch of Ag people who refused to move to Kansas City.

Serious question: What happens if an agency moves and employees refuse to go with it? Do they get fired? Is it a requirement that they be moved to another department or agency?

How does civil service regs address this?

John Henry

Ray - SoCal said...

Brilliant comment Dowd is at the bargaining stage.

>danoso said...
> I dunno, I guess this is progress. We seem to be at the bargaining phase.


Interesting that the Horowitz report had this impact on Dowd's writing in the NYT - this is an important cultural marker.

Richard Jewell film will move the Overton Window on the FBI Credibility even more if the film does well in the box office. If it's hardly seen, as with the Goswell Film, it won't. Since the Jewell film is not seen as a partisan hit job, and is backed by a major studio, it should. And with the credibility of the news media and FBI so low, it's perfect timing for the release.

Ken B said...

Maureen Dowd, 1940: Winston Spencer Churchill became the British Prime Minister today, clearly intent on bathing in Nazi aggression.

Amadeus 48 said...

Muareen Dowd is FUBAR. She'll never sort it out.

Unknown said...

Boy, when you get grudging respect from MoDow... the world is really bizarro, isn't it.

readering said...

Richard Jewell doing about half it's predicted box office. Adults rather see Adam Sandler.

Yancey Ward said...

Dowd is at the bargaining stage- she hasn't yet accepted that the FBI and the CIA leadership used their power for partisan politics- they really were meddling in the 2016 election, and really were attempting a coup after it. Right now, she is trying to convince people that "mistakes happened", but this is falling on deaf ears. I don't know that she will ever get to the point of admitting the truth to herself, but she is further along than almost everyone else on the Left.

mockturtle said...

According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the Five Stages of Grief are:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The Dems seem to be stuck in 1&2 and will never get to 5 even after Trump is re-elected in 2020.

Sebastian said...

"As Charlie Savage wrote in The Times, the report uncovered “a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process.”"

As I guess he didn't write, The Times' reporting was itself staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden -- except that the errors did serve a function: to assist in the coup. Their only regret is that they failed.

"The F.B.I. run by Comey and McCabe was sloppy, deceitful and cherry-picking — relying on nonsense spread by Christopher Steele"

Aided and abetted by The Times itself -- eagerly deceitful like all the MSM.

"he came to bathe in it."

Yeah, he came too bathe in the tsunami of nonsense and deceit thrown at him.

Even when a prog like Dowd tries to be honest, she has to lie.

wildswan said...

We all, including Maureen Dowd, now know that the Steele dossier was the predicate for the FISA court authorizing snooping on Trump campaign and Presidency and that the court accepted the dossier because the FBI certified that it had validated the dossier claims. That has been shown to be lie by Michael Horowitz, the FBI IG and the Dems and DC have accepted what Horowitz said. But half the country knew that the dossier was "salacious and unverified" and used by the FISA anyhow long before now. In January of 2017 Comey said the dossier was "salacious and unverified," Before the end of 2017, half the country knew that the FBI was wiretapping the Trump Presidency based on FISA warrants based on the piece of trash that was the dossier. The question is: how could something be true and be known by half the country for over a year and a half and yet come as surprise to the other half of the country. The answer is that some believed in the mainstream media and some did not; and those who believed in the mainstream media were horribly misled. But the followers of the mainstream media still don't understand that they could have known the truth in a rational way. They still think that Trump supporters were just uninformed cultists who were right by a lucky stroke whereas in reality Trump supporters were well-informed by a small, brilliant, dedicated group of reporters. One thinks of Kimberley Strassel, Sharyl Atkisson, John Solomon, Catherine Herridge, and my personal favorite, Sundance at Conservative Treehouse. So I think one way we could move forward as a nation is to ask these reporters why they got it right; and the others such as Dean Baquet at the NYT why they got it wrong; and the Pulitzer committee why they got it wrong. The mainstream media misinformed half the nation and tore us apart. Why? we should call them at the impeachment trial because the trial is going to happen because they misinformed the nation. First the reporters, the Kimberley Strassels, who found out the truth explain how they found it; and then Dean Baquet and national security reporters explain why they didn't find it. Sen. Ted Cruz could help them along with questions. It would be a good laugh but also I think people should find out just exactly why the media tore this country apart over a lie - a lie that was seen as a lie by half the country. And I think that at the impeachment trial we should find out just exactly why the media felt free and continues to feel free to insult the intelligence of the half of the country that understood that the lie was a lie.

I don't mean the media should expose its sources; I mean the media should explain at the impeachment trial why they didn't realize their sources were lying.

This rant was inspired by an article by Glenn Greenwald
"The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the U.S. Media."

https://theintercept.com/2019/12/12/the-inspector-generals-report-on-2016-fb-i-spying-reveals-a-scandal-of-historic-magnitude-not-only-for-the-fbi-but-also-the-u-s-media/

Michael K said...

Serious question: What happens if an agency moves and employees refuse to go with it? Do they get fired? Is it a requirement that they be moved to another department or agency?

How does civil service regs address this?


I don't know, not being a civil service expert. How about AWOL ? Are Civil Service employees expected to show up for work ? I would think so.

Michael K said...


Blogger readering said...

Richard Jewell doing about half it's predicted box office. Adults rather see Adam Sandler.


Theater was full last night. Keep hoping, though. You should save your pennies for
"Bombshell." They will need the money.

Charlie Currie said...

"Employees of the nation's public lands agency are quitting rather than move to the U.S. West as the Trump administration breaks up the headquarters in Washington, D.C.,"

Clearing the swamp, he is.

Original Mike said...

"I mean the media should explain at the impeachment trial why they didn't realize their sources were lying."

What makes you think they didn't?

buwaya said...

Schiff and Comey took the same or similar line as Dowd today, on Fox and ABC, their versions coming out as "if only I had known".

Obviously this is a coordinated message. Wait for a few more, probably.
Likely some attempt to get it "behind them". And so ignore it all going forward.

buwaya said...

The media coordination is so open.

Sebastian said...

"What makes you think they didn't?"

Sure, they had to know everyone except Trump and Nunes was lying.

But they peddled the lies eagerly.

Like the coup itself, the coverage was brazen. Not only did they have to know the lies were lies, they had to know they would be exposed at some point. They didn't care -- and apart of the sheer tsunami of anti-Trump propaganda, that is the most disconcerting thing about this episode. For they were right not to care: their priority was to help unseat Trump, and they they could afford to abet the lies because they knew they would never be held accountable if and when the lies were exposed. Hegemony is the ultimate protection.

narciso said...

she also makes a big fuss about the report, about Daniel jones, first attempt at a narrative, debunked by the likes of Jason beale, it tangentially addresses john brennan's role in hacking the senate intelligence committee, they have buffalo bob (ted levine) in that role, they have beatified Annette benning as Feinstein, because of course they would,

narciso said...

making us cry for abu zubeydah,, well he was the logistics coordinator, for the hijacker's recruitment, they put him in a box, smallest violin in the world,

Tim said...

Everyone needs to read the linked article from Bruce Hayden at 10:38. Obama era was a disaster for freedom loving Americans. Lots of people should be in jail/hanged from Obamas crowd

Original Mike said...

"they had to know they would be exposed at some point. They didn't care"

The right knew they were lying, but the media didn't care. The left knew they were lying, and wanted them to lie.

buwaya said...

There are no "five stages", there are no organic, honest opinions, there is no natural emotion in the US MSM. And none of course among the politicians. This is all engineered, scripted, produced, coordinated, and the lines delivered by the equivalent of professional actors, whatever their titles are.

Michael K said...

The Lee Smith book lays out all the media lies and names the names.

Jim at said...

I find it amusing the left is now very best friends with the FBI.

narciso said...

this was true, back to the mueller days, when his lieutenant, ali soufan, was spinning for abu zubeydah, it was only a year after the ig report was perused by thiessen, that we discovered the double talk from another prog zampolit who had buried the relevant documentation from admiral church's report,

SDaly said...

I'd say he's (Trump) done more to expose the mediocrity and the level of corruption in our government than any previous President in my lifetime. These are mediocre people put in positions of high regard. Whether by his own design or by his sheer will of not playing along and bending to their threats, he's brought them all to the surface and shone a light on the who and what. He's not draining the swamp yet. But he's showing us who and what needs to be done.

I hate to quibble, but isn't that precisely what "draining the swamp" would look like? Lowering the water level so that what lies beneath is exposed to the sunlight?

Clearing the swamp is for the second term.

SDaly said...

Actually, I think that could be a bad-ass second term theme - "Now it's time to clear the Swamp, together."

buwaya said...

This all seems very much like that Blackadder episode (Season 3, Sense and Senility), where the - not very bright - Prince Regent keeps mistaking fiction for reality, actors for kings and assassins, and etc.

Out of the MSM, or your Congress, you are seeing only fiction. All that world really is a stage, and everyone there is a player. Someone else is writing their lines.

wildswan said...

"Original Mike said...
"I mean the media should explain at the impeachment trial why they didn't realize their sources were lying."

What makes you think they didn't?"

Maybe they did or maybe they didn't. But the point is that half the country believed the stories the mainstream media told or, more correctly passed from the intelligence community. Yet there were members of the media, mainstream people also, like Kimberley Strassel, who, at the time, realized that these stories were false. But it's the people who didn't realize the stories were false who got the Pulitzer prizes. There'd be no impeachment if the reporters at the NYT/WaPo had told the real story - a story, let me say again, which some reporters told correctly at the time, just not enough of them. National security reporters ripped the country apart because they were, at best, too stupid to recognize a lie. And I believe that national reconciliation depends on them admitting their incompetence so people stop listening to them.

buwaya said...

"because they were, at best, too stupid to recognize a lie."

They aren't that stupid. Their editors and management and owners are even less stupid.
They do and say as they are told, else they would not get into print or broadcast.
This is deliberate policy to further a set of interests.

"national reconciliation depends on them admitting"

No, they are just cogs in a machine. People really must stop thinking of individuals, because your problems are about systems.

narciso said...

the samizdat (underground press) has been mostly on point, most of the prestige press, has been so far off the mark, and we see how they repeat the same lie about khashoggi's true motives, about Pensacola, they've nearly forgotten abquaiq, as they push for policies that would aggravate another similar crisis,

narciso said...

so how does one resolve this standoff, one is reminded of how Bismarck stated the alternatives, in the parliaments or in the streets,

TJM said...

MoDo, a bitter, old sot, still angry with the world because Michael Douglas dumped her. Even ModDo's family thinks she is crazy

FullMoon said...

John henry said...

One of the things the FBI does that doesn't get enough play is (apparent) entrapment of terrorists. They find some guy (it's always a guy) who is a bit stupid, disaffected and susceptible. They they convince him that it would be a good idea to blow up something. Then they give him a fake bomb, tell him to plant it. Then they give him a fake trigger and arrest him when he presses the button.


Yep. Doesn't even seem it would be hard to do. Go to the bar, buddy up to the drunk guy always talking about how he would do this or that. Agree with him, encourage him, provide the means, and there ya go.
Or, make friends with the friendless guy who wants to go along to get along and same scenario.

narciso said...

she throws all these controversies into a blender, the so called 'torture' report, the inquest in Afghanistan, and the Ukrainian brouhaha, now she does evince a little self aware,

nick Kristof, who through his correspondents meryl nass and susan Rosenberg, enabled the witchhunt of steven hatfill is still without shame,

Michael K said...

nick Kristof, who through his correspondents meryl nass and susan Rosenberg, enabled the witchhunt of steven hatfill is still without shame,

This is why the Media hate the new Eastwood movie. It hits hard on them.

narciso said...

indeed, it's surprising olivia wilde was involved, she comes from a far left dynast of activists, the cockburns, only one the late uncle alex was anything close to an iconoclast, on some matters, they were purveyors of the christic narrative, which was mainstreamed by series like Miami vice and even cagney and lacey, she's too far to the left for even deep blue virginia, then again eva longoria was in for the glory, andy garcias passion project about the cristero rebellion,

hombre said...

Just more projection from Dowd, a veteran swamp diver!

PuertoRicoSpaceport.com said...

Blogger SDaly said...

I hate to quibble, but isn't that precisely what "draining the swamp" would look like? Lowering the water level so that what lies beneath is exposed to the sunlight?

It is classic lean manufacturing practice from Taichii Ohno of Toyota back in the 70s.

He used the river and rock analogy explicity. Lower inventory (the river) and expose the rocks (manufacturing problems requiring high inventory).

Smash the rocks and then lower the river again. Rinse and repeat.

It is what PDJT is doing. I suspect on purpose. Egg everyone on to the point of excess, expose the problems to the point where they can no longer be covered and then say "Oh, gee, you want me to fix this? Well, OK"

Like when he said you have to flush a toilet 10-20 times. He knows this is not true but he also knows that if he had just said 2-3 times, nobody would have paid attention. He gets called foolish but he gets that anyway. Meanwhile everyone, Trumpers and non-Trumpers agrees that he has a point and that perhaps his solution is reasonable. Perhaps we will get a reasonable adjustment to federal toilet policy.

Henry Ford was doing this back in 1920 and talked about it at great length. He didn't have a good visual metaphor which is why we remember it from Ohno but not from Ford.

Etienne said...

The best example I could give, is when Fiona Hill showed her contempt of the President and the people around him. I think she called them errand boys.

The deep state is nothing sinister. It is only a bunch of clerks who require great force to move them into a particular direction.

What these clerks resent, is that they've been doing their job for years, and then some elected temp comes in and upsets the deck chairs.

For Trump, I think, he doesn't really care about them. He has to think about other things. The Congress, who are only around for two-year enlistments are easily manipulated by the lifers (elected for life).

If you want to know who runs the country, it is the 28 Billion dollar DOJ. They decide if you are going to be rich, poor, or incarcerated. They even use Soviet era floor polish in the halls.

PuertoRicoSpaceport.com said...

One of the reasons for Ohno's analogy of the river and the rocks, and Ford's earlier practices, was that too many people try to get rid of the rocks before they lower the water.

That does not work well for 3 reasons:

1) You can't see the rocks hidden under the water so how do you smash them?

2) You can't see the rocks so who gives a shit? Leave sleeping dogs lie.

3) Even if you could see the rocks and did have the will to smash them, it is much harder to do underwater.

The common business vision is to reduce costs so you can decrease price.

Ford, and Ohno to a lesser extent, thought that was all backwards. Henry would mandate a decrease in price to below cost. Then he would tell his people to figure out how to reduce costs so the new price was profitable.

Through manufacturing efficiencies, not by reducing features or quality.

Price of a Ford went from $950 in 1910 to $275 in 1928.

I've often wondered if Sam Walton had modeled Walmart on Ford. He certainly followed Henry Ford's principals.

Ohno modeled Toyota explicitly on Henry Ford's practices.

I wonder if Donald Trump is aware of them. He certainly follows the Ford model.

(I am a huge fan of Ford, Walton, Ohno and Trump for a lot of reasons)

John Henry

James K said...

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

That goes for not just the FBI but also the MFM, which ought to be the guardians but instead have thrown in with the corrupt Democrats.

James K said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PuertoRicoSpaceport.com said...

Blogger hombre said...

Dowd, a veteran swamp diver!

Is that what it is called these days? I've heard it called a lot of things, muffin munching, whistling in the wheatfield and more.

Swamp diving is a new one for me

NTTATWWT but shouldn't this be over in the horny thread?

John Henry

readering said...

Headlines from Sunday night Drudge Report:


'JEWELL' Disaster at Boxoffice...

Eastwood movie killed by controversy...

Director's Worst Debut...

tim in vermont said...

I think that Dowd knows that her readers are all crazy, and they have given her a little bit of a pass for calling out the Clintons, so she knows she is on a short leash and can’t afford to defend Trump, which is really waht she is doing here, while throwing in anti Trump boilerplate to keep people off of her back.

Think of it like being in a bad marriage you know you should end, but you know that it’s goign to blow up a lot of friendships you don’t want to give up. So take a deep breath and do what you have to to get through the next day.

tim in vermont said...

readering is Drudge’s new target audience. LOL.

FullMoon said...

Nunes tells Schiff he needs 'rehabilitation' after IG report: 'Admit you have a problem'

donald said...

“Federal toilet policy”. And there is the reason we are all going to hell in a hand basket.

Mary Beth said...

One way to fix this, quit making government institutions "sacred".

readering said...

Drago shows readering not all audiences are targeted.

Bilwick said...

That's keen.

Kirk Parker said...

"'Federal toilet policy'. And there is the reason we are all going to hell in a hand basket."

10 to 20 flushes at a time...