At This Point, Who Do We Trust

For John, BLUF:  If you repeat a lie often enough people begin to believe it, people with the power to change things.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

House Report Claims DNI Clapper Engineered Dossier Release

Here is the sub-headline:

How that might have been the act that got us the special counsel investigation.

From The Weekly Standard, by Mr Eric Felten, 27 April 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

For example, it was quickly noted by scholars of the Steele dossier that the House document reveals (or, if one is dubious of the House Intel majority’s credibility, one can say “asserts” instead) that it was President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, who helped engineer the public release of the dossier.  That release may well be the essential act in producing the special counsel investigation that continues to hang over the Trump administration.

Here’s what makes the dossier release essential—and no, it isn’t that the release exposed credible evidence of collusion: After more than a year of investigations there is still no evidence (at least no evidence that has been made public) corroborating the dossier’s significant allegations against Trump.  Rather, without the publication of the dossier, President Trump would not have pressed FBI director James Comey to prove the dossier’s allegations false.  That pressure is central to the narrative that Trump fired Comey in an effort to obstruct the bureau’s Russia investigation.  That narrative led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel; the question of whether the president attempted to obstruct justice is reportedly the main issue Mueller’s team is still investigating.

So how did the dossier get released? It’s important to remember that, for all of its treatment as some kind of “intelligence” report, the dossier was no sort of official intelligence at all.  It was Clinton-funded opposition research.  The tight wraps on the dossier came not from any government prohibition on its publication, but because the many media outlets in possession of the document were hesitant to make public claims that, for all their efforts, they had been unable to verify, confirm, or corroborate.

The thing is, if you scream "Hitler" often enough you begin to believe it.♠  The end result is that you feel you must act as though the President really was the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler.

The question is, how far are folks willing to go?

From Breitbart we have this headline today:  "Dershowitz:  Dems ‘Prepared to Eliminate Civil Liberties’ to Get Trump – I’m Also Critical of GOP on This".

The first paragraph reads:

On Saturday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz stated, “Democrats and left-wingers obviously think President Trump is the devil, and they’re prepared to eliminate civil liberties.”  He also criticized Republicans for their trying to expand criminal law and grounds for impeachment to go after the Clintons.

I immediately flash on the scene between Saint Thomas more and his son-in-law, Hugh Roper, in A Man for All Seasons.  And two paragraphs down the article makes the same point.

And, the Professor finishes up:

It’s always a mistake to expand the criminal law or the grounds for impeachment against your political enemies.  Because it’s going to come back to bite you in the rear end.

Professor Dershowitz is not wrong here.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Giving rise to the expression, "Drink their own bathwater."

It May Not Be Over in November

For John, BLUF:  The fun and games could continue into January 2017.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

We should probably file under "Don't know much about history".

From The Boston Globe we have "Moulton compares Trump’s rise to election of Hitler in 1930s".  That would be US Congress member Seth Moulton.  The Reporter is Mr Travis Andersen, of the Globe Staff.

Here is the gouge.  The voters in Germany did not elect Herr Adolf Hitler Chancellor.  No.  They elected people like Herr Seth Moulton, who then made Mr Hitler the Chancellor.

Anyway, here is the lede:

Representative Seth Moulton compared the rise of Republican presidential front-runner Donald J. Trump to the election of Adolf Hitler and said Wednesday that constituents should warn “that crazy uncle” against voting for the businessman if he wins the GOP nomination.

But, aside from making fun of a US Congressman for his ignorance of history, there is a practical lesson here.

While folks are focused on if the Republicans will have a contested Convention in Cleveland from 18 to 21 July of this year,♠ maybe they should focus on the Electoral College.  If there is a breakdown in the Republican Party and a Third Party emerges and then no one gets the required 270 Electoral Votes, the election of the President will tumble into the US House of Representatives.  There Representative Seth Moulton will have a chance to elect some sort of a tyrannical scofflaw, like Herr Hitler.  Chose well Representative Moulton.  The future of the Republic could hang on your vote.♥

Hat tip to the MASSterList.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Chaos made more likely if Ms Hillary Clinton is indicted for breaking Federal Statutes, or is given a pass notwithstanding overwhelming evidence.  I am glad I am not Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  A lot is riding on her decision, her integrity.
♥  Did you have a "crazy uncle" who voted for Herr Hitler?

Name Calling

For John, BLUF:  Godwin's Law in action, Democrat version.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Mr Daniel Greenfield and Front Page Magazine we have "EVERY REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IS HITLER".

Even as far back as when Pat Brown was Governor of California.

The thing is, if one wants to compare the current Republican Candidate with a truly evil person there is really only Joseph Stalin.  Reigned longer and died in his sleep.♠  Killed more.  Was going after Jewish Doctors when he died.  That wouldn't have ended well.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  At least I think so.

Boxcars?

For John, BLUF:  This isn't just micro aggression, this is prejudice.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Hot Air Writer ALLAHPUNDIT leads us to Mediaite, which has this paragraph:

She continued, saying it was “the height of irony that a party which espouses small government would want to unleash a massive law enforcement effort—including perhaps National Guard and others—to go and literally pull people out of their homes and their workplaces, round them up, put them, I don’t know, in buses, boxcars, in order to take them across our border.”

For its headline to an article by Reporter Alex Griswold, Mediaite titrates this down to "Clinton:  Republicans Want to Round Up Illegal Immigrants, Shove Them in Boxcars".

Thus, Godwin's Law has been fulfilled, and very early in the campaign.  Ms Clinton appears to be the winner.

Sometimes we get our historical metaphors mixed up.  Neither Donald Trump or any other Republican Candidate is advocating rounding up American Citizens and deporting them a strange land, there to be gassed and cremated.  There are some who say that illegal immigrants should be returned to their current homeland.  There is a difference.  To not recognize this distinction is to suffer from Invincible Ignorance

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Economic Growth

For John, BLUF:  Governments shouldn't be picking winners and losers.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Over at the blog Points and Figures Mr Jeffrey Carter, an angel investor and independent trader, asks the question "Why Is There Such High Unemployment In Illinois?".

Yes, the solution proposed by Mr Carter is less Government and more freedom and independence for entrepreneurs.

Of course, it is easy to pick on Illinois, since it is likely to be Detroit on steroids, given the overhang of public employee pension costs.

Of course the Governor of Illinois, Mr Pat Quinn, is the jerk who compared Black Republicans with Jews who collaborated with Nazis and no one in the main stream media cared.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Were Nazis Socialists?

For John, BLUF:  History is useful, when it isn't misunderstood.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

It is National Review.  It is Jonah Goldberg.  It is Godwin's Law.

But, still, entering the debate currently raging in The Telegraph, Mr Goldberg makes the point, correctly, that National Socialism was both national and socialist.  No hiding from the facts, please.

This feels like old times. Across the pond at the Telegraph, Tim Stanley and Daniel Hannan are having a friendly disagreement on the question of whether the Nazis were in fact socialists.  I don’t usually wade into these arguments anymore, but I’ve been writing a lot on related themes over the last few weeks and I couldn’t resist.

Not surprisingly, I come down on Hannan’s side.  I could write a whole book about why I agree with Dan, except I already did.  So I’ll be more succinct.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Gridlock in DC Explained

For John, BLUF:  Explains a lot.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Over at The Washington Post is this item on a report from the Semi-Official Iranian New Agengy, Fars News.  "Iranian news agency says the U.S. is secretly run by Nazi space aliens.  Really.".  The author is Max Fisher and the dateline is 13 January, at 11:31 AM.  Here is the lede:

Iran's semi-official news outlets have something of a reputation for taking conspiracy theorism to the next level.  They've written on Israel's secret plans to annex Iraq, the conspiracy by Western media to fabricate quotes by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemning the Holocaust and the secret Jewishness of the British royal family.  You may notice a certain theme here.

On Sunday, the hard-line semi-official Fars News dropped one of its biggest bombshells yet:  The United States government has been secretly run by a "shadow government" of space aliens since 1945.  Yes, space aliens. The alien government is based out of Nevada and had previously run Nazi Germany.  It adds, for timeliness, that the controversial NSA programs are actually a tool for the aliens to hide their presence on Earth and their secret agenda for global domination.  This is all asserted as incontrovertible fact with no caveats.

There are some practical considerations here, as noted by Mr Max Fisher in The Washington Post article:

A worldview that sees the U.S. as an evil hegemonic force so irrationally driven toward global domination that it must be run by space aliens is not a worldview that is predisposed toward negotiation or accommodation.

Regards  —  Cliff