"Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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It’s not just a chant at Trump's rallies or lame wordplay in his tweets. It’s his call to fascist rule
You know someone's in a real panic when they start running in circles, and that's what Donald Trump has been doing for the past week. He started off last Sunday with an epic tweetstorm, 126 of them in all, the third-highest total for one day in his presidency, according to FactBa.se, which keeps track of Trump's statements. "Obamagate!" he tweeted, following that one with "Because it was Obamagate, and he and Sleepy Joe led the charge. The most corrupt administration in history!"

That presaged by 24 hours his now-famous exchange with Philip Rucker of the Washington Post in the Rose Garden, when Rucker asked him, "What crime, exactly, are you accusing President Obama of committing?"

"Obamagate," Trump replied, refusing to define the "crime" or provide any specific evidence. So Rucker followed up: "What is the crime, exactly, that you're accusing him of?" Trump shot him what passed for an angry look: "You know what the crime is," Trump answered. "The crime is very obvious to everybody."

What was Obamagate, pundits asked each other with puzzled looks on their faces, as the week wore on? They should have known that it would have something to do with Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, who lasted all of 24 days in the job before being fired for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his phone call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in late December of 2016. Flynn was later charged with lying to the FBI, pled guilty twice, and has been awaiting sentencing for more than two years. Trump's Department of Justice, under the direction of Large Lickspittle Bill Barr, moved to drop the charges against Flynn last week, which generated a letter signed by 2,000 former Justice Department officials denouncing the motion filed by Little Lickspittle Timothy Shea, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. The judge in the case will hold hearings on the matter and has not yet issued a ruling.

There is a perfect symmetry to the involvement of Michael Flynn in Trump's latest attempt to deflect attention from his inept handling of the coronavirus crisis, which has caused the infections of more than 1.4 million Americans and the deaths of more than 87,000 nationwide. Flynn enjoyed a singular distinction during the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations, besides his coziness with Russian bankers and ambassadors. Obama gave Trump only one piece of personal advice during their private meeting in the White House after Trump was elected: Whatever you do, don't hire Michael Flynn. For anything. Ever.

But Trump loved Flynn. It had been Flynn who led the delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention in chanting "lock her up" after mentioning the alleged criminal behavior of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. As with Trump's use of "Obamagate" as a shorthand for Obama's alleged corruption while in office, Flynn's allegations against Clinton were equally vague and shorn of specificity. Trump had already been encouraging his crowds to chant "lock her up" at his campaign rallies in 2016, and has continued the practice ever since. I don't know of a single rally Trump has held since he's been in office when the crowd didn't break into the "lock her up" chant, with Trump allowing the fascist bellowing to wash over him as he stands at the podium, smiling with approval at the crowd.

I use the words "fascist bellowing" on purpose, because that's what it is: Trump supporters at public events and rallies loudly endorsing official lawlessness. It's not a funny joke or clever verbiage. Trump and his followers have been routinely advocating the jailing of Trump's political opponents without an investigation, criminal charges, trial or conviction by a jury of their peers. This is the way fascist dictators dispose of their political opposition. Putin has jailed opponents of his regime. He has also arrested wealthy businessmen whose enterprises he wanted to seize, and of course he has ordered the murder of Russian citizens who he felt betrayed him.

Trump himself circled back around to calling for the jailing of his political enemies for unspecified crimes on Thursday morning in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox Business Network. Trump called the "unmasking" of Flynn "the greatest political crime in the history of our country."

He continued: "If I were a Democrat instead of a Republican, I think everybody would have been in jail a long time ago … it is a disgrace what's happened. This is the greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country." To set the record straight, that's ludicrous and untrue. Flynn's "unmasking" was a routine national security procedure during which officials in the Obama administration were given Flynn's name as the person who was caught on NSA wiretaps talking to Kislyak during the Trump transition, when Flynn was serving as an adviser to Trump on national security and international relations. Included among the Obama officials were Trump's bete noire, former FBI director James Comey, and Vice President Joe Biden.

Another fascist dictator who made use of extrajudicial imprisonment of political enemies was Adolf Hitler. He didn't bother with leading "Lock her up" chants at his rallies. He just locked up his political opponents and racial and ethnic and religious enemies in concentration camps where they were executed or perished from disease and starvation. His followers rewarded him at political rallies by chanting "Heil Hitler." It was the all-purpose approbation of Hitler's leadership of Nazi Germany, a mass public endorsement of everything he did, including locking up his political opponents. That's what "Lock her up" has become for Trump.

Trump's campaign people are already talking about holding rallies as Trump blackmails the states by pushing his "open up" madness. "Lock her up" chant doubles down on hatred for Hillary Clinton, or these days for Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, for those in love with Trump, by loudly calling for his political opponents to be imprisoned without trial for unspecified crimes. If you don't believe me, listen to the chant the next time he holds a rally. Trump's followers are both swearing allegiance and saluting him. "Lock her up" is Trump's "Heil Hitler."
https://www.salon.com/2020/05/16/obama ... eil-trump/

It is getting worse every day. Trump and his minions are sounding and acting more and more like the start of the Third Reich. Even before Hitler came to power the Nazis were already steamed deep in the German courts and the state and local governments.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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I have seen state lawmakers openly defending Hitler (Alaska) and running as white nationalists (or for the white supremacists) in Georgia this year. I know it isn't just Alaska and Georgia because I have been to other states. This will be a turning point election. Can we survive four more years of GOP POTUS and a GOP Senate? It is already going to take 12 years or more to repair the damage so far.

Mark my words, other countries will start seeing record immigration from the US if this keeps up.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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CDFingers wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 7:15 am Dan Rather:
Watching President Obama’s graduation address tonight I think I finally understand Obamagate. It’s the scandal of having a president being able to speak with empathy, humor, insight, inspiration and in complete and coherent sentences.
CDFingers
Not that I disagree, not one iota, but Dan Rather has always been able to take the mundane and blatantly obvious and make it sound deeply profound.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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It's no surprise that trump takes his political positions from Mein Kampf. The important position that has to be looked at is the philosophy of national socialism (Hitler lead the National Socialist German Workers Party, the German acronym is NSDAP). That political philosophy is that the individual has to surrender their identity to the state, in this case Germany. In truth there isn't much difference between that and soviet socialism.

Capitalist philosophy is that the individual surrenders their identity to themselves and their family. End of story. Stalin and Hitler both expected citizens to sacrifice their lives for the glory of the collective state. This is trump's political philosophy too. No doubt. Will he try to make himself dictator for life in a totalitarian state and start a war of aggression by invading Mexico and Canada to steal their resources? I don't know. I believe voters still have a say. But moscow mitch mcconnell is trying to silence the voter's voice in his and trump's crusade.

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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https://theintercept.com/2020/05/14/new ... tigations/
GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN, President Obama’s former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty on December 1, 2017, to a single count of lying to the FBI about two conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while Flynn served as a Trump transition team official (Flynn was never charged for any matters relating to his relationship with the Turkish government). As part of the plea deal, special counsel Robert Mueller recommended no jail time for Flynn, and the plea agreement also seemingly put an end to threats from the Mueller team to prosecute Flynn’s son.

Last Thursday, the Justice Department filed a motion seeking to dismiss the prosecution of Flynn based, in part, on newly discovered documents revealing that the conduct of the FBI, under the leadership of Director James Comey and his now-disgraced Deputy Andrew McCabe (who himself was forced to leave the Bureau after being caught lying to agents), was improper and motivated by corrupt objectives. That motion prompted histrionic howls of outrage from the same political officials and their media allies who have spent the last three years pushing maximalist Russiagate conspiracy theories.

But the prosecution of Flynn — for allegedly lying to the FBI when he denied in a January 24 interrogation that he had discussed with Kislyak on December 29 the new sanctions and expulsions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration — was always odd for a number of reasons. To begin with, the FBI agents who questioned Flynn said afterward that they did not believe he was lying (as CNN reported in February 2017: “the FBI interviewers believed Flynn was cooperative and provided truthful answers. Although Flynn didn’t remember all of what he talked about, they don’t believe he was intentionally misleading them, the officials say”). For that reason, CNN said, “the FBI is not expected to pursue any charges against” him.

More importantly, there was no valid reason for the FBI to have interrogated Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak in the first place. There is nothing remotely untoward or unusual — let alone criminal — about an incoming senior national security official, three weeks away from taking over, reaching out to a counterpart in a foreign government to try to tamp down tensions. As the Washington Post put it, “it would not be uncommon for incoming administrations to interface with foreign governments with whom they will soon have to work.”

What newly released documents over the last month reveal is what has been generally evident for the last three years: The powers of the security state agencies — particularly the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the DOJ — were systematically abused as part of the 2016 election and then afterward for political rather than legal ends. While there was obviously deceit and corruption on the part of some Trump officials in lying to Russiagate investigators and otherwise engaging in depressingly common D.C. lobbyist corruption, there was also massive corruption on the part of the investigators themselves, exploiting and abusing their vast and invasive investigative and prosecutorial powers for ideological goals, political subterfuge, election manipulation, and personal vendettas. The former category (corruption by Trump officials) has received a tidal wave of endless media attention, while the latter (corruption and abuse of power by those investigating them) has received almost none.

For numerous reasons, it is vital to fully examine with as much clarity as possible the abuse of power that drove the prosecution of Flynn. To begin with, cable and other news outlets that employed former Obama-era intelligence operatives, generals, and prosecutors to disseminate every Russiagate conspiracy theory they could find — virtually always without any dissent or even questioning — have barely acknowledged these explosive new documents.

More disturbingly, liberals and Democrats — as part of their movement toward venerating these security state agencies — have completely jettisoned long-standing, core principles about the criminal justice system, including questioning whether lying to the FBI should be a crime at all and recognizing that innocent people are often forced to plead guilty — in order to justify both the Flynn prosecution and the broader Mueller probe.

But the most critical reason to delve deeply into this case is that it reveals one the most dangerous abuses of power a democracy can suffer: The powers of the CIA, FBI, and NSA were blatantly and repeatedly abused to manipulate election outcomes and achieve political advantage. In other words, we know now that these agencies did exactly what Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned they would do to Trump when he appeared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program shortly before Trump’s inauguration:

Because U.S. politics is now discussed far more as tests of tribal loyalty (“Whose side are you on?”) than actual ideological or even political beliefs (“Which policies do you favor or oppose?”), it is very difficult to persuade people to separate their personal or political views of Flynn (“Do you like him or not?”) from the question of whether the U.S. government abused its power in gravely dangerous ways to prosecute him.

Flynn is a right-wing, hawkish general whose views on the so-called war on terror are ones utterly anathema to my own beliefs. That does not make his prosecution justified. One’s views of Flynn personally or his politics (or those of the Trump administration generally) should have absolutely no bearing on one’s assessment of the justifiability of what the U.S. government did to him here — any more than one has to like the political views of the detainees at Guantanamo to find their treatment abusive and illegal, or any more than one has to agree with the views of people who are being censured in order to defend their right of free expression.

The ability to distinguish between ideological questions from evidentiary questions is vital for rational discourse to be possible, yet has been all but eliminated at the altar of tribal fealty. That is why evidentiary questions completely devoid of ideological belief — such as whether one found the Russiagate conspiracy theories supported by convincing evidence — have been treated not as evidentiary matters but as tribal ones: to be affiliated with the left (an ideological characterization), one must affirm belief in those conspiracy theories even if one does not find the evidence in support of them actually compelling. The conflation of ideological and evidentiary questions, and the substitution of substantive political debates with tests of tribal loyalty, are indescribably corrosive to our public discourse.

As a result, whether one is now deemed on the right or left has almost nothing to do with actual political beliefs about policy questions and everything to do with one’s willingness to serve the interests of one team or another. With the warped formula in place, U.S. politics has been depoliticized, stripped of any meaningful ideological debates in lieu of mindless team loyalty oaths on non-ideological questions.

Our newest SYSTEM UPDATE episode, debuting today, is devoted to enabling as clear and objective an examination as possible of the abuses that drove the Flynn prosecution — including these critical, newly declassified documents — as well the broader Russiagate investigations of which it was a part. These abuses have received far too little attention from the vast majority of the U.S. media that simply excludes any questioning or dissent of their prevailing narratives about all of these matters.

Notably, we invited several of the cable stars and security state agents who have been pushing these conspiracy theories for years to appear on the program for a civil discussion, but none were willing to do so — because they are so accustomed to being able to spout these theories on MSNBC, CNN, and in newspapers without ever being meaningfully challenged. Regardless of one’s views on these scandals, it is unhealthy in the extreme for any media to insulate themselves from a diversity of views.

As the journalist Aaron Maté demonstrated when he brilliantly challenged The Guardian’s Luke Harding about his bestselling book claiming to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia — one of the few times a Russiagate conspiracy advocate was forced to confront a knowledgeable critic — those claims often cannot survive even minimal critical scrutiny. That’s why media outlets have insulated these conspiracy theory advocates, as well as their audiences, from any dissent or even critical questioning.

Today’s SYSTEM UPDATE episode, which we believe provides the most comprehensive examination to date of these new documents relating to the Flynn prosecution and how this case relates to the broader Russiagate investigative abuses, can be viewed above or on The Intercept’s YouTube channel.
EAT,SLEEP,RANGE,REPEAT

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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GeorgiaRN, the attacks on the security state are difficult to defend when the attacks are only one-sided. The FBI is called corrupt when it investigates far-right friends of Putin, but the current administration ignores (and encourages) abuses when the investigative focus is on political enemies.

MLK and other civil rights leaders were routinely harassed and investigated. I don't hear Trumpians upset about that. They are perfectly fine with abuse and corruption unless it exposes their own abuse and corruption.

It is about fairness, rules, and laws. It isn't FBI good vs FBI bad.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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K9s wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 5:12 pm GeorgiaRN, the attacks on the security state are difficult to defend when the attacks are only one-sided. The FBI is called corrupt when it investigates far-right friends of Putin, but the current administration ignores (and encourages) abuses when the investigative focus is on political enemies.

MLK and other civil rights leaders were routinely harassed and investigated. I don't hear Trumpians upset about that. They are perfectly fine with abuse and corruption unless it exposes their own abuse and corruption.

It is about fairness, rules, and laws. It isn't FBI good vs FBI bad.
yea thats no shit, look how bad they were mocking Greta Thunberg

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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As it turns out, each of the 29 warrants was justified.
The Department of Justice has completed its review of the 29 FISA applications that were the subject of preliminary findings by the DOJ Inspector General (OIG) in March 2020. We are pleased that our review of these applications concluded that all contained sufficient basis for probable cause
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statemen ... ic-release

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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CDFingers wrote:As it turns out, each of the 29 warrants was justified.
The Department of Justice has completed its review of the 29 FISA applications that were the subject of preliminary findings by the DOJ Inspector General (OIG) in March 2020. We are pleased that our review of these applications concluded that all contained sufficient basis for probable cause
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statemen ... ic-release

CDFingers
Ya don't say... Saw that one coming a mile away

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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Yeah, as usual the hole in Adolf Trump's rant is that Flynn plead guilty to the crimes he was accused of--and did so twice. He's not some 17-20 year old high school dropout who went to poor schools and even then did badly. Flynn was a 3-star Army General with 3 masters degrees, including one from the Naval War College. IOW, he had the knowledge, the resources, intelligence, and the best legal advice on the planet.

In other words, Flynn is totally, completely, and absolutely guilty of the crimes he plead guilty to. And that's the hole in Adolf Trump's play.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:01 pm Yeah, as usual the hole in Adolf Trump's rant is that Flynn plead guilty to the crimes he was accused of--and did so twice. He's not some 17-20 year old high school dropout who went to poor schools and even then did badly. Flynn was a 3-star Army General with 3 masters degrees, including one from the Naval War College. IOW, he had the knowledge, the resources, intelligence, and the best legal advice on the planet.

In other words, Flynn is totally, completely, and absolutely guilty of the crimes he plead guilty to. And that's the hole in Adolf Trump's play.
for real, for somebody with those kinds of resources, connections, and representation, a plea agreement generally means they likely committed worse crimes than they are pleading guilty to.

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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kronkmusic wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:13 pm
YankeeTarheel wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:01 pm Yeah, as usual the hole in Adolf Trump's rant is that Flynn plead guilty to the crimes he was accused of--and did so twice. He's not some 17-20 year old high school dropout who went to poor schools and even then did badly. Flynn was a 3-star Army General with 3 masters degrees, including one from the Naval War College. IOW, he had the knowledge, the resources, intelligence, and the best legal advice on the planet.

In other words, Flynn is totally, completely, and absolutely guilty of the crimes he plead guilty to. And that's the hole in Adolf Trump's play.
for real, for somebody with those kinds of resources, connections, and representation, a plea agreement generally means they likely committed worse crimes than they are pleading guilty to.
Good point! And, yes, I agree.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: "Obamagate" and "Lock her up": Pointing the way toward "Heil Trump"

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Josh Campbell
@joshscampbell
·
7h
Ted Cruz asks Sally Yates if the FBI was surveilling any other candidates for president. Her answer reminds the public of Russia's efforts to help Trump.

Yates: “No… there was no information that the Russians were working to aid another candidate other than Donald Trump."
https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/statu ... 0213859625

Well, now.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

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