The Spirit of J. Edgar Hoover

These are very perilous times in America. And, oddly, from afar, they seem strangely mirrored by recent events in Israel.

This country is divided in half. To the extent there is any kind of squishy middle it is terrified to express itself.

It was the same during the eight years of the Obama Administration, but the opposition was meek, less expressive and feared the prospect of combating those who controlled power because there was an implicit suggestion that challenging the President had a racist undercurrent.

That protective cloak was wide enough to cover his closest advisers, particularly his “wingman”, Attorney General Eric Holder, the former Columbia University radical who seized the campus Naval ROTC facility in 1970, and was the first cabinet member in the US history to be cited for Contempt of Congress. He escaped any consequence for failing to disclose documents to Congress regarding the “Fast and Furious” gun-running disaster to Mexico and Obama invoked executive privilege to prevent any documentation from being revealed.

There was not a peep of protest from the Republicans. None of this was covered by the media with any sense of healthy skepticism.

Little did we know at the time that this was just a sample of how Obama and those closest to him employed the awesome power that was available to them and held the potential for abuse.

But the media was enthralled with Obama. His periodic encounters with the press were devotional psalms to his sense of the hip, to his anti-Bushness, to his openness to break with the great American middle and embrace the elite corridors between Washington and New York and Los Angeles to San Francisco.

The Dark Tipping Point

His real dark tipping point came on September 11, 2012, at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. There’s no need to retell that story, except to say that it was handled with mystifying ineptitude. Every major Administration character in the event’s aftermath lied about what happened, what might have been done, why perpetrators were not apprehended. Hearings in Congress were held, and those who held them were pilloried for only doing so for their own political gain. No effort was made in the press to uncover the truth of the events of that night as if the protection of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was the greater priority.

That was closely followed by an embarrassing admission by the IRS that one of its offices had been targeting conservative non-profit groups seeking tax-exempt status and “slowing down” their applications. Turns out, it wasn’t being done at one of the IRS field offices, it was happening at IRS headquarters in Washington and it was being supervised by a woman, Lois Lerner, who had made the initial admission.

No one in America fears any government bureau as much as the IRS. As far as they are concerned, you are guilty until proven innocent. When they assess penalties and interest on underpaid taxes they believe you owe, the balances build exponentially.

In May 2013, the initial response to this confessional from both parties and the press was uniform outrage. “A truly Nixonian abuse of power by the Obama Administration.” “It’s time for action.” “This is tyranny.”

By June 2013, powerful liberal Democrat, Elijah Cummings, stated: “Based upon everything I’ve seen, this case is solved. And if it were me, I would wrap this case up and move on.” In January 2014, the FBI, led by Director James Comey, determined it found no evidence warranting the filing of federal charges and found no evidence of “enemy hunting”.

In a February interview before the Super Bowl Obama told Bill O’Reilly, late of Fox News, that “there is not even a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS. It is unclear whether Director Comey may have had access to Obama’s opinion on this matter before the FBI made its determination.

Which brings us to today.

Donald had acted like an absolute ass during the primaries, tagging his opponents with juvenile nicknames, threatening trade wars, massive deportations, immediate reversals of Obama extraconstitutional orders and regulations. He promised disruption and often sounded like he didn’t know what he was talking about.

And the coup de grace, when it came down to just Ted Cruz and him, was when he intimated that Sen Cruz’s father, who had fled Castro’s Cuba with absolutely nothing, had known Lee Harvey Oswald and may – just may – have had something to do with the assassination of John Kennedy.

There was not a chance under heaven – without the influence of some powerful conspiring influence – that this boob could become President of the United States. Not running against Hillary Clinton, America’s first female President, who had the full support of Barack Obama, America’s first President of color. It was Leftist Nirvana.

Donald Trump’s election was so stunning, so inconceivable to Obama’s Washington – New York and Los Angeles – San Francisco hyper-comfortable support bubble, that their world was shaken to its nucleic core.

The Irrefutable Nunez – Gowdy Memo

We have learned numerous critical facts in the last few weeks that are no longer in dispute, thanks to the heroic of efforts of Rep. Devin Nunez who has been personally attacked by Rep. Ted Deutch (who accused him of ethics violations – I would tear into him were he not representing the people suffering in Parkland, FL) and the reprehensible Rep. Adam Schiff who determined that Trump colluded with Putin before single witness was interviewed.

A fraudulent document, generated by a former British MI6 agent who loathed Trump and paid for by the Clinton Campaign and the DNC, was used by the FBI and the Department of Justice to obtain warrants to spy on an American citizen the document represented was a Russian spy. This citizen had contact with members of the Trump campaign, so anyone with whom he came into contact would also be spied upon.

The FBI and DOJ did not vet the document, did not inform the secret FISA Court who had paid for the document’s generation, did not disclose that a senior DOJ official had met with this MI6 agent, that the DOJ official’s wife was on the payroll of the company that employed the agent and that the FBI’s Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe’s wife had accepted a $700,000 campaign contribution from one of the Clintons’ closest associates for a Virginia state office for which they persuaded her to run.

These revelations encapsulate the American divide.

James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, refers to Trump as Putin’s “asset”. John Brennan, Obama’s Director of CIA, says Trump displays qualities “usually found in narcissistic, vengeful autocrats.” Obama’s Director of the FBI, James Comey, described the Devin Nunez – Trey Gowdy memo which exposed the FISA Fraudulence as a “dishonest and misleading memo” and that it “damaged relationship with FISA court”. The media generally agree with the assessment of these “intelligence” experts.

James Comey has finished his book. It’s called Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership. He’s giving an exclusive interview to George Stephanopoulos, the objective ABC journalist, who ran Bill Clinton’s War Room. Comey says he’s looking forward to joining the discussion about ethical leadership.

It seems his postgraduate work was undertaken under the watchful eye of the man in whose building he worked for so many years: J. Edgar Hoover, that paragon of ethical leadership.