Note: In a break from the grifter code, I am not going to assume the new merch is the greatest merch in history. Criticisms and suggestions are welcome. This is new ground for me, so I expect to be terrible at first and get better over time. Please shop here and leave a comment when you can. Also send feedback to me.
When Americans think of government corruption, it is government officials getting the public’s money confused with their own money. Maybe a politician takes bribes to do the bidding of someone with interests before the government. It can also be a civil servant taking bribes to do someone a favor. Alternatively, it can be the government insiders colluding with outside players so that the insiders make money from a government contract or a government program.
While those are examples of corruption, the problem goes beyond people in government stealing from the public. In the general sense, corruption is an indifference to the rules that supposedly govern society. The corrupt do not see the rules as limits on their behavior, but as obstacles to overcome in pursuit of their goals. They have no respect for or allegiance to the spirit of the law. More important, they have no respect for the morality that lies behind the law.
This contempt for the spirit of the law is on display in the ongoing trial of Clinton lawyer Michael Sussman. He is charged with lying to the FBI about his relationship with the Clinton campaign. He brought the phony Russian collusion hoax material to the FBI claiming he got it as part of his work on cyber security. According to the FBI, he said he was not representing anyone with regards to the issue. In truth he was working for the Clinton campaign on exactly this issue.
Charging someone with lying to the government is usually a way to leverage a lawyer or public official into cooperation. The charge itself is relatively minor, but it has serious career consequences, so it is a good tool to use on a lawyer. In this case, it appears the prosecutor is using it as a way to build a larger narrative to explain how the biggest hoax in American history was perpetrated on the public. This trial provides the general plot structure for the rest of the story that will come later.
That plot structure is this. Sussman was running a group of dirty tricks people for the Clinton campaign back in 2016. Using a lawyer for this provides them with some confidentiality in the event things go wrong. Sussman hired a group called Fusion GPS and some other freelance operators to manufacture dirt on Trump. They would then feed this to reporters on their payroll. Franklin Foer is someone they used to put these fake stories into the mainstream media.
The way this fraud worked is Sussman went to the FBI with fake documents alleging a secret channel between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. As a partner in a connected Washington law firm, he gets priority access to senior officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice. Meanwhile, others are planting the story with their people in the media with the claim the FBI is already looking into it. The media hacks then call the FBI for comment and add that to the story.
There is nothing new here. Political actors have been using friends in the media since the dawn of the printing press. The reason we have the Sally Hemmings fable is that opponents of Jefferson slandered him in the media of the time with the claim that he was having sex with his slaves. In this age, when all of the mass media is in the pocket of the uniparty, the fake news is mostly about promoting the aims of the party and distracting people from that which is bad for the party.
An interesting wrinkle in this case is that Sussman got the fake documentation for the Trump-Russia link from one of the goons on his dirty tricks squad. That trickster was a person named Rodney Joffe, who was some sort of IT consultant. He was the guy who allegedly created the fake documentation. He was also an FBI informant, according to the various filings in the case. This raises an obvious question about who actually concocted the Russian collusion hoax.
That may be the point of this trial and the long running Durham investigation, which promises to continue for many years. By pinning the scandal on Sussman, they can also pin the scandal on Hillary Clinton. That serves the interests of the uniparty by making sure she does not run again on 2024. More important, it paints the FBI as the innocent party, hoodwinked by those dastardly Clinton people. Sussman has been paid to take the fall, which is why he is not cooperating.
That may seem a bit Machiavellian, until you remember that the senior staff of the FBI were engaged in wholesale spying on the Trump campaign. There is no question that two dozen or so characters involved in the Spygate scandal defrauded the courts and violated their oath of office. One guy was charged in that for doctoring an e-mail that was used to defraud the court. Otherwise, the rest have sailed off into lives of comfort, having done their part for the cause.
Then you have the Mueller investigation. This was engineered by people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who knew at the time that the claims about Russian collusion were manufactured by the Clinton campaign. That is something else that has come out in the Sussman trial. The FBI knew the documents provided were fake and they knew the source of them. Since the source was a confidential FBI informant, it is possible that the real source was the FBI all along.
All of this sounds like the grubby political intrigue that has distinguished the Clinton era of politics, but it also highlights the depravity of the political system. Across the upper reaches of the political system is a deep contempt for the rules. The claims made about Nixon fifty years ago have now become the culture of Washington. The charge against Nixon was that he corrupted the institutions for personal gain. Today the institutions corrupt anyone unfortunate enough to have contact with them.
Corruption has consequences. Once a ruling class stops respecting its own rules, the rest of society soon follows. For example, it was the Russophobia created by the Clinton dirty tricks campaign that opened the door for the neocons. Five years of demonizing Putin and Russia to attack Trump made it easy for the usual reptiles to launch this pointless war against Russia. Every time you buy gas or food, you can thank Hillary Clinton for the sticker shock.
Another example to consider is the media. One of the things revealed in the trial thus far is the degree of collusion between members of the elite press and the people running the dirty tricks campaign. Fusion GPS was founded by journalists. None of the “reporters” who participated in this hoax have been punished. Many of them have been given awards for their “reporting” on the story. The media is every bit as mobbed up as the people on the political class.
One final note on the Sussman trial. The judge in the case is connected to the FBI gangsters exposed during Spygate. He also used to pal around with Sussman when they were learning how to be crooks together. The jury has several Clinton donors, to make sure the jury remains impartial. For those old enough to remember, the trial now has this level of objectivity and probity. Anyone thinking Sussman gets convicted should calibrate their expectations accordingly.
The lack of public interest in this case is due, in part, to the media organs of the party being told to ignore it. The bigger reason is that the staggering level of corruption in the ruling class has been normalized. People are no longer shocked or offended by the lying from Washington. It is the rare times when someone speaks honestly that grabs the attention of the public. The Sussman trial confirms the obvious. America is a kleptocracy run by a thoroughly corrupt ruling elite.
If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!
Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.
The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.
Today’s column on the fake Russia-Trump collusion hoax is interesting, but it misses the fact that no scandal really sticks in the public imagination without someone with a really goofy name being involved. H. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, Fawn Hall, John Poindexter, Jeff Gilooly, and Joey Buttafucco are good examples of people with weird names who really made their scandals pop for the average joe. Without someone with a funny and memorable name, a scandal has much more trouble sticking.
Juanita Broaddrick would have had a much easier time of things if, for example, she had been named Juanita Burpfarter. Bill Clinton would have been in REAL trouble then. It’s unfortunate but true.
1
Does anyone have a normal name anymore though? Last time I met a Bob Smith he was in a casket.
As a fan, I have to disagree the pee pee dossier affair and coverup constitutes the greatest hoax in US history. That honor belongs to WWII, then Covid, the 2020 general election, and the six million. The pee pee flows down from those events.
3
“Once a ruling class stops respecting its own rules, the rest of society soon follows.”
Cynicism and narcissism follow. This is why opportunists aren’t necessarily hypocrites though they may look and sound like hypocrites.
Some folks go, “It’s all a sham. Nothing we can do about it. So let’s go along to get along. Some go, “Can’t deal with it,” and look the other way. Some, as in the case of BLM or covid, with their lawn signs and masks, virute signal in the hope of setting themselves apart from sinners and thus sneaking into heaven on the sly. Some throw fits (Roe v Wade protesters who won’t personally be affected.) Some simply turn off and devote themselves to their passions, interests and working in their Panglossian gardens.
At the deep end, narrative reality replaces fact based reality, and the natives on Easter Island chop down their last tree to make their last idol to the gods, and those who come after wonder, “Why’d they do that?”
You pretty much nailed it. The show trial primarily serves two purposes:
1. To exculpate the totally corrupted FBI/DOJ, although even Normie realizes at this point those outfits are worse and trashier than organized crime; and
2. To take out and tarnish Hillary Clinton and her family permanently. This has likely been done to placate the Regime’s Step-‘N-Fetchit in the person of Barack Obama.
The whole exercise is silly. Many if not most people, even the most retarded cucks, no longer harbor illusions about the FBI and DOJ. Hell, increasingly this distrust applies to Muh Military.
The American public has accepted a corrupt, Third World-style political and judicial system. As long as the junta can deliver the bacon, they don’t care. When it cannot deliver the bacon, the localization and dissolution will accelerate (or worse, although I’m skeptical there). People in D.C. may be so detached they do not apprehend this reality, but, warranted or not, you catch flashes of fear here and there. Use of the Military Production Act to deliver baby formula, for example, is at least an attempt to assuage outrage that formula is being provided to illegal aliens and denied to citizens.
Finally, an observation: if Putin or a Latin American dictator had engaged in the same misconduct as the political and judicial systems did in the failed coup attempt, the State Department would condemn it. That may or may not apply to Xi since he has bribed so many key Washington figures.
The irony of that last point is off the charts.
> Use of the Military Production Act to deliver baby formula, for example, is at least an attempt to assuage outrage that formula is being provided to illegal aliens and denied to citizens.
The insane part is the FDA bans European formula, though it’s objectively far better for most than the American sludge we give our kids. Just lifting the restrictions would solve the shortage overnight without a dramatic and ultimately useless airlift.
It’s another aspect of Theatre Kid government, where the focus is not on fundamental items like rule of law, transparency, and dispensing justice to corrupt agents who break trust, but the protect their own lingering doubts of their own legitimacy, and trying to get the public to buy it.
Jack nails it here. The FBI now only has time to investigate white guys who have given any offense to blacks, race hoaxes, bank robbers (because banks run the country) and conservative politicians. Everything else slides. The Jalisco cartel and the Zetas could take over San Antonio before eliciting the slightest comment from the Biden Administration.
Institutional decay is obviously accelerating. We have become numb to it. In just the last 3 years, we have had unprecedented crookery, profiteering, censorship and gaslighting.
Jack correctly observes that the ruling junta must provide formula though or risk the Diem/Allende treatment.
“America is a kleptocracy run by a thoroughly corrupt elite.” Exactly. Wake me when someone of significant note is perp walked to the nearest REAL prison…
1
there are consequences to having such a corrupt government, and we are seeing them now. the rules are what give structure to a society, that allow efficient operation of the economy. it isn’t going to be too much longer before individual states are stronger than fedguv, and stop sending the latter “their cut”. multi-nationals will also go the way of the dinosaurs as they depend on fedguv for their existence (as well as cheap reliable transportation).
in general, large countries will be dis-associating all over the world, as the expertise to keep together is lost. the only thing you can build with mud people is huts…
2
Thus we witness the ending act of the American Empire. The Beautiful Government People make no effort to hide their corruption, they hate the common people, and purposely make policy to make our lives hell. Nothing changes except more vile examples of this come out with each passing day.
I figure there will be some event that will set into motion The Final Collapse. It will be either like the end of Soviet Imperial Communism, or there will be an orgy of violence in The Mother of All Purges. One thing for sure, the end of the Dollar as the world reserve currency would take it all down, but it could be a disastrous war.
The only question is, what sort of lead-up events would result in a solution that makes the Bolshevik Revolution appear tame in comparison? I figure our Government will do something that makes the people absolutely hate them. I suppose we shall see which way it goes, and probably soon.