A "Bubble-Popping" Facebook Memory Which Drives Home How Little We Are Doing Relative To What Is Needed--

A "Bubble-Popping" Facebook Memory Which Drives Home How Little We Are Doing Relative To What Is Needed--

This Facebook post from me copied below was from two years ago, and it was in the context of the Durham probe which was launched by William Barr against the Bidens in response to demands by Trump. The intention was to launch a series of "October Surprise" indictments to disrupt the election. This was one very live scenario against which numbers of observers had warned, and which I reported on. Another was the January 6th attack on the Capitol, the white supremacists rebellion against which I also warned a year and a half in advance. 

The Durham investigation did not deliver indictments before the election as Trump wanted, and eventually fizzled. William Barr bailed out on Trump at the end because he was  fearful of his blatantly illegal demands and general mental instability. But I guarantee that in the future, if there is a MAGA President, there will be no one serving that will even do what Barr did, little as that was. 

Be very clear. If the GOP returns to power by winning the Senate and House, their first order of business will be to impeach President Biden and Vice- President Harris, launch investigations of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and to impeach Justice Jackson from the Supreme Court. The House Judiciary Committee will be run by Jim Jordan, the Senate by Lindsay Graham, who has already called for Biden's Impeachment over Afghanistan. Thus enabled, rogue red State Governors will do as Hitler did, which is to commit crimes against justice, then write laws post hoc to render their crimes legal with the help of the fascist Christian nationalist Supreme Court. Our system of checks and balances and our Federal system will be history, as will democracy itself. These are matters which most prefer to not think about, which I insist on writing about. 

Some might argue that they won't have the votes for impeachments, so we shouldn't be alarmed. However the goal of what they will do is chaos, paralysis, and ungovernability. This is intended to create the pathway for another coup attempt to reinstall Trump without an election. 

Never happening? Well, make a list of those things you thought would never happen, but did. 

This is for a start. If MAGA retakes the presidency, these will be the opening salvos of a nationwide roundup of Trump's opposition. That will be followed up with mass arrests of dissidents, minor drug offenders and the homeless who will be put in labor camps modeled on Sheriff Joe Arpaiao's fascist operations in Arizona. That will restart the economy of slave labor in the United States, with a hedge fund financed privatized prison system being the institutional vehicle, just like Nazi Germany in it's early phases. And the death penalty will be massively expanded, with the help of fascist Governors and the Supreme Court, over whom we have no control. 

The list of essential life preserving and enhancing Federal programs which will be dismantled is comprehensive, and will essentially cancel the 20th Century. Also to be canceled are those human beings considered to be "unfit" according to the GOP's social darwinist ideology.  But, everything they plan to do depends upon crushing dissent on the model of Putin, Orbán and the Saudis. And that is what hangs upon what we do in the next period, ourselves. If we are content to "chill" and make popcorn while we keep refreshing our Twitter feeds for updates on the latest DOJ investigation news, then we are dead. F**king dead. 

When we say that the Trump/MAGA/GQP machine is fascist, they are in every respect that, not just on a few issues. Your friends and family members who still support him are either accomplices or just soft on fascism, moral degenerates whose souls died and went to Hell long ago, though their bodies still walk the Earth. Why, if any, they are still in your lives is a matter for each individual to sort out and live with. 

We need the fighting spirit of the Ukrainians to prevent this outcome, and we need to be prepared for a long war. What we all saw especially from the period of May 2020, through January 6th 2021 is not merely the compilation of the atrocious things they did, but it is who and what they are. Anyone believing that Merrick Garland's DOJ investigations are going to "make MAGA go away" is living in a Tooth Fairy dream world. It will make them worse. That doesn't mean the investigations should be dropped. It means WE are responsible for what happens in the aftermath. We, us. 

Do not be fooled that election victories for the Democrats will solve our national crisis, it will only briefly mitigate it. We should expect even in the best case vote an explosion of MAGA stochastic terrorism followed by an organized armed insurgency when Trump is indicted. This will be accompanied by state governments taking actions which are virtual secession in an attempt to break up the United States. Don't kid yourselves that Liz Cheney running against Trump amounts to a hill of beans, or a third party for that matter.  Anything we are hoping for which does not include ourselves playing a personal role is just a deflection and diversion. 

That includes many of my friends who I care about who say "I'm not political," and won't talk to me because they are too afraid to face reality, or to do anything about it.  Or those too smug in the belief that none of this affects them, therefore they can just go ahead and live their lives.  The refrain "ohh, I don't know what to do about this"  holds no weight for Ukrainians at the moment, and it shouldn't for us either. Being cynical or dismayed is not a Doctor's note to be excused from the conflict.  This condition of neutrality has an expiration date of less than three months from today. Everyone will be political.  Everyone's life will change yet again, as it did with the pandemic. Except that in this case, "locking down" won't protect us.  

Every day I try to take stock of what I'm doing and ask, "is it enough?" I encourage all to ask the same question.

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My Take On The "Durham Investigation"--

August 17, 2020

["Americans are aware that Trump is using Barr's totalitarian legal philosophy to break new ground on a daily basis in violations of the US Constitution, abuse of power, and protecting himself and cronies from criminal prosecutions. With each new atrocious executive order, he pushes the envelope further in his design for an economic, political and theocratic dictatorship. 

Yet, people still act surprised and shocked. "I can't believe what he just did" becomes a daily refrain. Not for me.

I knew what he would do in 2017, when I saw his response to press criticism, and read a report about one of his first meetings with AG Sessions. Trump asked Sessions whether he had the power to write an executive order to modify the 1st Amendment, and curtail press freedoms, which he thought were excessive.. Sessions had to patiently explain to Trump that he couldn't do that. 

One of the reasons Trump despised Sessions was that there were a number of episodes where Trump wanted to commit illegal acts, and his AG wanted no part of it. This was echoed later in reports by Tillerson at the State Department. In effect, Trump thought the role of AG was to function as his personal lawyer, and political fixer, the role previously held by Trump Organization lawyer, Michael Cohen. It was around the period of Sessions recusal on the Russia investigation that Trump began to attack Sessions, and was heard screaming, "where's my Roy Cohn"? (Look him up if you are unaware who he is. The dirtiest, most corrupt Lawyer and trickster of the 20th Century, the midwife of McCarthyism) Eventually, Trump had to settle for Rudy Giuliani to follow that role, which for Trump has not worked out well, due to Rudy being a little too drunk and reckless in his public and private actions.

That said, we need to assume that Barr and Trump are capable of the worst. Someone recently raised the issue of PEADS (Presidential Emergency Action Documents) recently. This is the extreme lengths to which they will go. However, let's be concrete.

The Durham investigation, according to both Barr and Trump is going to try to release a report before the election. Both have stated their intent to throw out the long tradition at DOJ to never use investigations or indictments before an election or to influence it. This could happen.

What they are doing is laying the groundwork for indictments of Joe and Hunter Biden, Barack Obama, possibly former CIA Brennan, and anyone else directly involved in 2016 in starting the investigation of Trump's collusion with Russia, which was far more extensive than what was covered OR redacted in the Mueller Report. 

Trump, in effect, is using the DOJ to take the leaders of his opposition as political hostages, to negotiate his refusal to transfer power, and to create enough leverage to protect himself from all legal consequences for his actions, past, present and future. 

Sessions may be a right-wing Ideologue, but he was principled, and stood in Trump's way. 

William Barr is a devotee of Professor Carl.Schmitt, who was Adolf Hitler's legal advisor, and leading jurist of Nazi Germany, as stated years ago in presentations made at his organization, the Federalist Society. 

Trump and Barr see the Constitution as an impediment to autocracy to be overridden, not a guide to effective government. The failed Impeachment unfortunately made things worse when it removed the guardrails on unchecked presidential power. 

Some of the people we are relying upon to lead the opposition to Trump and undo it, could be facing indictment before or around Jan 20, 2021, or under further investigation, based on the corrupt Durham investigation. It's not about Hunter or Joe Biden and corruption in Ukraine. It is a take down of the former Obama-Biden administration. 

Remember, Trump is obsessed with the "Godfather" series. He sees himself as preparing a "settling of accounts" with his enemies, past and present, imagining that he is Michael Corleone. He is on the phone every week with his mentor in autocracy, Vladimir Putin, getting advice on his next political steps to crush the opposition. 

 And once again, I raise the question of what we will do then. I'm not saying this will happen. But don't be shocked or surprised if it does.