GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Establishment GOP joins the Coup?

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A cluster of news items could be pointing at this. First, from The New York Times on Aug 5, Vice President Pence has been busy with the power brokers:

…Mike Pence’s schedule is so full of political events that Republicans joke that he is acting more like a second-term vice president…

…multiple advisers to Mr. Pence have already intimated to party donors that he would plan to run if Mr. Trump [were out]…

Mr. Pence has been the pacesetter…creating an independent power base…promoting himself as the main conduit between the Republican donor class and the administration.

The vice president created his own political fund-raising committee, Great America Committee…The group, set up with help from Jack Oliver, a former fund-raiser for George W. Bush, has overshadowed Mr. Trump’s own primary outside political group, America First Action, even raising more in disclosed donations.

William Kristol, editor at large of The Weekly Standard, said he had begun informal conversations about creating a “Committee Not to Renominate the President.”…

The story frames it as a matter for 2020 and talks about Kasich and others. What I wanted to highlight here, is that:

  • Pence, whose participation in any coup is essential, is no shrinking violet.
  • Interventionists – people who want more wars – like Bushworld and Kristol, continue to work actively against Trump.

Next, today we have the news that Bannon is out. Supposedly, he resigned Aug. 7 and they delayed announcing his departure, due to too much other news (North Korea, Charlottesville). I don’t think that Bannon leaving is a yuge deal, but it may be a piece in a larger pattern.

Next, Newsweek says that Trump is 6 Senate votes away from being impeachable. The rumor mill states it in a sharper form: that the RNC (! not DNC) has been counting votes to do an impeachment.

We know how impeachment would work: They would invent some excuse. Trumprussia is nonsense but it won’t matter to them. Mueller could find a ham sandwich that Trumpworld purchased in Russia and call it money laundering. And so on. If they want to do it, they’ll think of a way.

As if on cue, we have Mitt Romney demanding an apology from Trump over Charlottesville.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, wrote on Facebook. “State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville.”

Mitt is wrong, both on the facts (how the violence was distributed) and on the Constitution (the First Amendment excludes one group having a Heckler’s Veto on another group’s right of assembly). But, whatever. The point here is, reading the tea leaves. Again, the rumor mill states it more sharply, that VP Pence may have contacted Romney and had a hand in Romney’s attack.

If a coup comes to be, the losers will, of course, be the American people. For better or worse, whether it’s good or bad, 65 million Americans wanted “America First” and “Make America Great Again”. And NO Americans, not even Hillary supporters, voted to see “politics as usual” with the GOP and Democrat establishments uniting against the election result.

Trump is supposed to be at his best when his back is against the wall, so he may have a comeback in him. But he will have to remind the Establishment of why Americans voted for him. In other words, Trump will probably have to reactivate his base – re-fight 2016 – go “full barbarian”.

Assuming that he doesn’t have an assassination or suspiciously-timed heart attack first. The GOP and Democrat Establishments may be feeling pressure to move quickly, because Julian Assange has committed to blowing Trumprussia out of the water.

Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Ruh-roh! (if you’re the Establishment or Deep State)

Some scandal updates

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Anthony Weiner is to plead guilty “to a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor, pursuant to a plea agreement…”

This is the same Anthony Weiner who

  • is still married to Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin
  • had thousands of Hillary Clinton’s illegally-handled emails on the same laptop that he used to commit his sex crimes with minors
  • caused former FBI Director Comey to reappear in the news last October, which many Democrats believe (probably wrongly) to be the cause of Hillary’s election loss.

It’s sad how Clintonites deflect the blame to Comey and Russia for all that, rather than putting it where it belongs on Weiner, Abedin and the Clintons themselves.

“A likely result of the plea is that Mr. Weiner would end up as a registered sex offender, although a final determination has yet to be made…”

UPDATE: Huma has finally just filed for divorce.

In other news, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Rape Investigation Is Dropped in Sweden.

The accusations were always of a “he said, she said” nature, with Assange saying that he had met the alleged victim several times amicably, for consensual sex.

The announcement represents a victory for Mr. Assange, 45, an Australian…

[but] In Britain, he still faces a warrant for failing to appear in court, and the Metropolitan Police in London said on Friday that they would arrest Mr. Assange, who has maintained his innocence, if he were to try to leave the [Ecuadorian] embassy…

[U.S.] Prosecutors have long been exploring the idea of charging Mr. Assange as a conspirator in the underlying offense of illegal theft of documents…

[but] The Obama-era Justice Department, which had gone as far as to present some evidence about WikiLeaks to a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., was deterred from pursuing the case further because it proved difficult to distinguish what WikiLeaks had done in publishing the classified information provided by Ms. Manning from what The New York Times and many other mainstream news organizations do.

Most news organizations that cover national security and foreign affairs regularly publish information from sources that is considered classified by the United States government. By long-established tradition, however, only the government officials who provide such information have been prosecuted, not the journalists who publish it.

IN STILL OTHER NEWS: Evidence has emerged that, while still just a candidate, the President conspired with Iranian mullahs to undermine the foreign policy of the existing administration. Which meets a reasonable definition of treason!

Oh, wait – it was President Obama, while still just a candidate, conspiring with Iranian mullahs to undermine the foreign policy of the Bush administration. And lefties haven’t given the tiniest crap about it.

CIA vs. WikiLeaks: It’s Awn

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Of course the fight between them was already on; I’ll get to that in a moment.

President Trump’s CIA director, Mike Pompeo:

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, in his first speech since taking over the agency, lambasted WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange — calling the group a “non-state hostile intelligence service” that is often abetted by “state actors like Russia.”

Speaking Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Pompeo called Assange a “fraud,” someone with no “moral compass” and a “narcissist who has created nothing of value.”

He asserted that Assange and former National Security Agency staffer and famed leaker Edward Snowden “seek to use that information to make a name for themselves” and they “care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security.”

Asked why he would focus on WikiLeaks rather than other issues, Pompeo said he felt it was vital to inform the American people about the threat they pose.

There’s more. RTWT.

Some of Pompeo’s claims are absurd, and others are all too real. First, the absurd: That Snowden did it to make a name for himself.

The guy is almost a prisoner – in Russia, of all places. If he comes back to the U.S., he faces trial. Snowden agrees that he should face trial, and says that he will do so – when he is allowed to mount a public-interest defense (presenting his side of it, that he acted in the public interest when he revealed masses of NSA classified info). But I digress. The point is: Snowden has given up so much to reveal what he revealed, that saying he did it for the fame is ridiculous.

Similar thoughts would apply to Assange, who is almost a prisoner in Ecuador’s embassy in London. While no one is ever perfect, both of these men have acted from their ideals. In denying that so crudely, Pompeo counts on his audience to be stupid.

As to what’s real in Pompeo’s speech: There is no question that both Snowden’s revelations and WikiLeaks make the job of U.S. intelligence agencies much harder. That has to be a bad thing, in many respects. The question is whether, in some other respects, it might also be a good thing?

What has been revealed, first by Snowden and more recently by WikiLeaks Vault 7, is: massive surveillance programs whereby U.S. intelligence agencies spy not only on enemies, but on allies and on ordinary Americans. Really unconstitutional programs and capabilities. So unconstitutional and invasive that they destroy U.S. moral authority and make us understandably hated by the rest of the world.

Until recently, Pompeo’s boss, President Trump, was pro-WikiLeaks (see here – Trump literally said “I love WikiLeaks!”). And against excessive surveillance, such as the Obama administration’s surveillance on Trump before, during and after the 2016 election. Likewise with Pompeo himself. But their love for WikiLeaks was before the Vault 7 revelations and more to come, which could be ugly enough to destroy the CIA as an institution.

In the past, I’ve blogged on my ambivalence about Snowden (example, see here). But, in the last year, I’ve come more to his side; glad that he and Assange did what they do. The more so because of news headlines in the last 5 months: I believe that some leaders of the U.S. intelligence community have tried to damage (if not overthrow) a duly elected President, with a campaign of “intelligence leaks” that are so empty and misleading as to be lies-in-effect. That would be a separate issue. But one that proves the said leaders’ bad faith and anti-constitutional intentions.

In short, we’re at a sad juncture where several issues point to the same conclusion: the U.S. intelligence community is way out of control and in great need of investigation and cleanup.

As always, feel free to disagree or state your view, in the comments. (As always, I’m looking for “agreeable disagreement” and exchange; don’t expect me to come instantly to your viewpoint.)

“Russia hacked our election”: False, on so many levels

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V just nailed it, in another post:

“Those ignorant bitter-clinger hicks in flyover rust belt states hate women and are so stupid they fell for Russia’s tricks,” is the essence of [the Left’s explanation for the 2016 election].

In other words, saying “Russia hacked our election”…

  1. …is an insult – to the American people. That’s one thing wrong with it. But, there’s more.
  2. No one ever disputes that the DNC and Podesta e-mails that came out, were genuine. In other words: the hacking/leaking gave the voters true and relevant information about a major candidate’s wrong-doing and shady dealings.

    When I was a kid, we had the original “-gate” scandal. It was this thing called Watergate. One of Watergate’s lessons, supposedly, was that if a major politician is up to no good, it doesn’t matter how the information comes out. It’s only important that it comes out. So that the voters will know.

    Whoever leaked the DNC and Podesta emails didn’t “attack” or “harm” or “undermine” our democracy. They enhanced it. *Because* the information was 100% true and relevant in this case, the hackers/leakers did our democracy a big favor. Whoever they were.

  3. And, if we are supposed to worry about interference in our elections/democracy, then…
    • What about Hillary’s dependence on Saudi Arabian money? Saudi Arabia is one of the most anti-gay and anti-woman countries on Earth. Can we talk about how Saudi Arabia has hacked our democracy?
    • Why don’t we talk about Bill and Hillary hacking our democracy, with their massive pay-for-play corruption and scandals? Or Hillary’s cheating in the debates? (part of what the e-mails exposed)
    • Why don’t we talk about the Controlled Media hacking our democracy, with their tyranny of Fake News?

      Remember the endless drumbeat about how Hillary is up in the polls, Hillary has it locked, Hillary is 95% sure to win. All that was Fake News intended to depress non-Hillary voters. That is: To suppress voter turnout!

      Hey, why don’t we talk about the known, active collusion in 2016 between the Controlled Media and Hillary campaign operatives?

    • Why don’t we talk about George Soros and the Left hacking our democracy, with all their paid/staged protests, violence, trolls and astro-turfing?
    • Why don’t we talk about U.S. interference in other countries’ elections? The CIA has interfered in German media and every German election since the end of World War II. Is Angela Merkel, then, illegitimate?
  4. Last but not least, let’s cover the reasons why Russia could easily NOT have had any part in the DNC or Podesta e-mail hacking/leaking.

If I missed another good reason, please add it in the comments.