Author Archives: Curtiswselby

They say not to write a blog from a tired space, but I suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, so frankly, everything I do is from a tired space. Likely I'm not doing the greatest job of search engine optimization. But I know there are others like me. Passionate about life.

Don’t Worry Darling: We Can Distract Voters From Our Bad Behavior By Focusing on Democrat Mistakes!

In my experience nothing, nothing is more horrible than a father’s grief for his son. I honestly don’t want to do this post. Though I know Biden will almost certainly never see it, I would still want him to know, that while we are political opponents, I know he has suffered, and my heart goes out to him. Now let’s begin.

I have friends on both sides of the aisle. Some are just a hair’s breadth from being Socialists, and some are hardcore capitalists. Suffice it to say, this is the general gist of how my discussions go when it comes to Mar-A-Lago:

With a more Liberal friend: “Donald Trump should be locked up!”

Me: “Does that mean that Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden should be locked up?”

Liberal friend: “The news told me that all of that stuff was a hoax. You can’t believe Fox News! Everyone knows that!”

Does anyone else identify?

Now here is how my conversations with my conservative friends go:

Conservative friend: “Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden should be locked up!”

Me: “What about Trump? Should he be locked up for slipshod storage of Top Secret Materials he should never have kept?”

Conservative friend: “The news told me that stuff was planted on him and the whole Mar-A-Lago raid is a political sham! Everyone knows you can’t believe CNN!”

George Orwell tendered his resignation to the BBC on the radio. If you think there hasn’t been a long and illustrious history of the government and big business selling lies as news, you need to share what you are smoking. But that is a post for another day. Image from the BBC website.

The three points for this post:

1) The Democrats (at least on the grassroots level) can be forgiven for thinking the Trump political campaign is largely a one-trick pony.

2) The Republicans are baffled why the FBI was willing to investigate Hillary Clinton, causing an October surprise, but waited to investigate Hunter Biden till well after the 2020 Presidential Election.

3) What in tarnation is on that laptop to cause all the ruckus, anyway?

I guess I’m becoming an old softy. All the suspicious and sneaky-looking photos I could have picked, instead I choose this one. Hunter and Joe Biden, the controversy, whether legit or not, has to hurt. Image from USMagazine.com

I’m pretty sure my conservative friends take umbrage at my first point, but it is true. The way Trump has been portrayed to the liberals (for right or wrong) is as a small-minded bully who would never have gotten anywhere in life if not for his Daddy’s money. I’m going to post three links that I think will adequately portray my point:

https://www.axios.com/2018/04/29/one-trick-pony-inside-trumps-negotiating-style

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-pennsylvania-voter-fraud-primaries-mehmet-oz-1708128

https://reason.com/2019/10/15/on-tariffs-trump-is-a-one-trick-pony/

Now, THIS is a one-trick pony! “Death Pony”! image from IMGUR

Jonathan Swan of Axios.com reports that all of Trump’s strategies can be boiled down to this basic concept: ” Threaten the outrageous, ratchet up the tension, amplify it with tweets and taunts, and then compromise on fairly conventional middle ground.

“​“His ultimate gamble is: ‘You don’t have as big of stones as I do,'” a source close to Trump told me. “‘You’re going to feel too uncomfortable where I go. The stakes are too high. This is too far outside your comfort zone.'”

Swan then proceeds to share some very compelling examples: “Consider these threats: To withdraw from Syria (he reengaged with missile strikes), withdraw from Afghanistan (he settled on the more-of-the-same strategy recommended by his generals), withdraw from the U.S.-Korean trade deal (Trump’s team negotiated with the Koreans and announced modest changes to the deal), veto the government spending bill (he signed it), and impose severe worldwide tariffs on steel and aluminum (he offered a bunch of exemptions).”

If I’m understanding Swan correctly, the signature Trump negotiation involves exploding with fury, threatening insane retribution, then bullying the opponent to a reasonable middle ground and signing off on it.

Trump gambles that he has the biggest balls of anyone in the room. So what happens when he plays poker with this guy? Image from the album of one of my favorite “Urban Country” groups Blues Saraceno.

Newsweek makes a similar claim: in Trump’s efforts to assist the politicians he is accused of simply parroting his claims from 2020. “The race in Pennsylvania is still too close to call, with Trump-backed candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz leading former hedge fund manager David McCormick by the narrowest of margins, 31.2 percent to 31.1, with 98 percent of the votes declared.

“The primary is now almost sure to head into a recount, meaning the results may not be known for several days at least. Despite this, Trump has suggested that Oz is the winner and that the celebrity heart surgeon should just “declare victory” over McCormick.“

‘”Trump, a one-trick pony, is playing the fraud card again, urging Oz to act like a Wizard and just declare himself the winner in PA!” tweeted David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama.’

This article paints Trump as a bully who wants his cake and to eat it too. On one hand, Trump is portrayed as someone willing to cry foul, on the other, he is reported as someone willing to declare victory before all the facts are in, and the end results be damned. As usual with your Tired Blogger, I can really see both sides of this debate.

On to my next source though. Reason.com reports that Trump has only one economic strategy to deal with other nations: tariffs. Peter Suderman writes:

“Yet it’s still telling that this—imposing steel tariffs—is what he chose to do. For Trump, tariffs are the key to solving nearly every issue that presents itself. The rise of China as an economic power? Tariffs. Immigrants coming across the southern border? Tariffs. The federal budget deficit? Probably tariffs. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is kind of smug and annoying? Yes, still: Tariffs. 

“Never mind that Trump and his pro-tariff advisers have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no earthly idea how international trade actually works. Never mind that tariffs have clearly hurt the U.S. economy and cost the very manufacturing jobs—including in steel manufacturing—that Trump says he wants to save. Never mind that Trump-style tariffs can presage global destabilization. Whatever the problem is, Trump is convinced that tariffs are the solution. 

“This is precisely the opposite of true. Tariffs do not, and have not, accomplished Trump’s goals. As Reason‘s Eric Boehm has written over and over and over and over again, the trade wars have been a failure on nearly every level.”

This makes Trump look like a half-wit version of Teddy Roosevelt, shout loudly, and carry a big stick.

Whether any of this is true or not (and the Tired Blogger is too tired to do your thinking for you, agree or disagree with these folks as you wish, but I would appreciate comments letting me know why you agree or disagree), surely even the most radical, hardcore Republican can see why the Democrats at the grassroots level believe what they believe. Assuming that the political opposition only sees this one aspect of Trump, can’t they be forgiven for thinking the way they do? And the more radical and hard-nosed my fellow Republicans act, doesn’t that just feed into the self-fulfilling prophecy? Unless we have written off the Democrats as utterly reprobate (and I fear too many Republicans at the grassroots have), surely we can start a dialogue by damping down on the anger (some of which is justified). Martin Luther King did it with Republicans and won a lot of us over. Are there no longer statesmen willing to reach across the aisle and put country before party?

The concession speech Reagan delivered at the 1976 Republican Convention is honestly a big reason why I am a Republican. I was a weird kid. I remember this speech. It resonates with me and even haunts me a little. One thing I loved about it was this statement: “I’m going to say fellow Republicans here but those who are watching from a distance — all those millions of Democrats and Independents who I know are looking for a cause around which to rally and which I believe we can give them.” He didn’t call people names. He didn’t say they were Communists or that they ought to be locked up in prison. He simply gave a vision of what our country could be, had a plan to achieve that vision, and invited them to come along. This is the statesmanship we need today.

To my second point: while Trump may live in an echo chamber, I fear too many Democrats at the top levels do as well. The Clintons and the Biden and even the Obamas can sometimes at least appear guilty of not listening to the American people. That (and the October surprise) is what won Trump the election, to begin with. A huge segment of the population no longer felt heard, and Trump at least made them feel heard. Let’s explore this.

This is all great Tired Blogger. What has all this got to do with Biden? It will all make sense in a bit.

So while it is not mentioned in any of those posts, I know if I were a Democrat I would think Trump to be a one-trick pony because he won one election due to top secret emails on Hillary Clinton’s server, and at least to the Democrats, it had to seem as though he tried to win again based off of controversial items on Hunter Biden’s laptop. To them, it has to seem like the same song with different verses.

Now let’s look at this from a Republican’s viewpoint. My pro-Trump Republican friends are baffled by the whole situation. From their viewpoint, this has been a major miscarriage of justice. Hillary should have been locked up, and would likely have been, too, except Trump graciously let the quarrel go with his acceptance speech. Then Hunter Biden comes along with a laptop (their words coming, not mine) full of emails proving that the Bidens are on the payroll of the Chinese, and his father Joe, “the Big Guy,” is nothing other than a Manchurian candidate. They cannot understand how more Americans can’t see the injustice of Hillary Clinton and Joe and Hunter Biden being Scott-free when Trump is being persecuted by the FBI. In no way do I mean disrespect to my friends, it may be possible I misunderstood some points. But this is the gist as it has come to me of their view of the current events.

Let’s look at some articles and see if we can figure out why Republicans at the grassroots level see it this way.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-reiterates-call-for-new-election-over-fbis-handling-of-hunter-biden-laptop-story

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-slams-fbi-truth-social-posts-after-special-agent-leaves-bureau-1738031

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3631227-taking-on-trump-and-hunter-biden-what-to-do-with-cases-that-could-change-elections/

You should be really impressed I only use one Fox News article. But I’m trying to be fair and centrist here. So let’s dig in:

Ok, the Fox News report leaves me with a lot of questions, but here are some of the key takeaways. Trump is quoted, “

“The FBI just fired its Special Agent In Charge of this outrageous & very illegal assault on the Constitution of the United States of America!” he added. 

On Monday, the former commander-in-chief had written: “So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn’t, ‘Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.’” 

The villain du jour is FBI director Christopher Wray (no relation to the lady in King Kong. Who do we believe? Personally, someone with such perfectly coifed hair couldn’t possibly be lying…image from the Fox post I’m quoting.

Reporter Danielle Wallace (no relation to William Wallace) tells us that “Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., are calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to turn over communications between government agencies and Facebook employees regarding Hunter Biden after Zuckerberg admitted that his company censored news articles about the president’s son after the FBI reached out.”

Unnamed whistle-blowers claim that there was communication between FBI agents, including FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and Mark Zuckerberg…yeah, that guy. You know. Founder and erstwhile CEO of Facebook (bite me Facebook). Zuckerberg has admitted Facebook censored articles about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Thibault (who denied killing Romeo) has retired and was not part of the Mar-A-Lago investigatory team.

Newsweek reports that “A security source told Fox News that Thibault…was escorted out of the building on Friday as is standard practice when an agent leaves.”

James Bickerton goes on to report “An inquiry into business practices of the president’s son, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware, is currently ongoing.

“A Rasmussen poll published in December 2020 found more than 50 percent of Americans believed the news media deliberately ignored the FBI’s seizure of a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, in order to benefit Joe Biden.”

Now let’s see what Andrew McCarthy of TheHill has to say: “Some politically fraught cases, moreover, involve potential threats to American national security — a concern the Justice Department has highlighted as its rationale for seeking a judicial search warrant to search former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. We need not venture a premature judgment on whether that concern was valid. For present purposes, the point is that, in principle, it would be wrongheaded in national security cases for law enforcement officials to drag their feet in a manner that prioritized the political calendar over protecting defense secrets, and the methods and sources for obtaining them. 

“In my many years in federal law enforcement, my objection to the 60-day rule was more basic: Failing to take action can be just as prejudicial as taking action. Let’s say the FBI had overwhelming evidence that a candidate for public office was taking bribes or involved in a fraud scheme, and let’s assume that the evidence was sufficiently compelling that, in an ordinary case, arrest and indictment would proceed. It would be perverse for the suspected politician to get extra solicitude — consideration that the average person would not get — because he is seeking an office of public trust that, the evidence shows, he is unfit to hold. 

“Obviously, I am not saying that consequential action ought to be taken on the basis of weak evidence or, a la Walsh, legal deficiencies. I am simply saying that when an investigation has reached the point where charges are appropriate, the presumption should be in favor of filing charges. Otherwise, the public would be denied information that would be given in a normal case, and we could end up with a corrupt person in office.”

Does it strike anyone else as odd that Mark Zuckerberg is embroiled in these scandals? Image from Fox News article cited above.

A Tired Blogger’s analysis: the FBI, right or wrong, chose not to do the same thing in 2020 that they had done in 2016, I.E. they did not help Trump’s campaign (please allow me to stress, I’m not claiming they helped him on purpose in 2016, but they did intentionally refrain from helping him in 2020). Then after the election…after all the scandal and after the Mar-A-Lago investigation, the FBI agent who is most implicated in burying the Hunter Biden story retires. Yes, we are told it is a mere coincidence that he becomes eligible for retirement now. But please hear me Democrats (there are several of you I love, I wouldn’t be messing with this post if I didn’t). If the shoes were on the other foot there would truly be riots in the streets. While both parties are guilty of using riots and violence for their political ends, be intellectually honest here. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at these articles:

https://www.newsweek.com/what-caused-last-chicago-riots-1968-1524006

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/uw-students-gather-to-mourn-clinton-loss/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-inauguration-protests/violence-flares-in-washington-during-trump-inauguration-idUSKBN1540J7

In no way am I trying to discredit Democrats’ outrage about the January 6 incidents, or their outrage about their perceptions about Trump and Mar-A-Lago. What I am asking for is for members of the grassroots of both parties to grow up and accept that their parties are both capable of injustice, tyranny, and violence. If we can’t both be intellectually honest, then there really IS no peaceful recourse possible.

The Democrats see the Republicans as traitors who are willing to bully their way to success, and the Republicans see the Democrats as traitors who are willing to use the FBI and big tech as tools to undermine our liberties. Let’s both call a spade a spade. In this post, as much as I would like to, I’m not going to try to make peace between the two. All I am asking is for both parties to acknowledge that there is a good reason why the other party sees them as monsters. Neither party must believe the other right just yet. But both need to see there is reasonableness in the view of the other. We can both be angry at our leaders in Washington. We can both be angry at the Media and big corporations and globalist neighbors. But we HAVE TO STOP hating our neighbors. There are good reasons why they think the way they do. Accept it. Admit it. And start an honest dialogue between each other. Fuck the two parties. It is the survival of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors we should worry about.

An image from the film The Ten Commandments. I’m going to give a Tired Blogger analysis here. Is it possible that the waters on the right, that will kill us, are the Republican Party? And the waters on the left, equally deadly, are the Democratic Party? Perhaps the path to peace, life, and prosperity lies in the middle?

Last of all…I notice none of these articles actually tell us what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop. We have at least some vague ideas of what Hillary’s emails contained, and of the documents, Trump had at Mar-A-Lago. What in the world is on Hunter Biden’s laptop? And does it merit all this fuss? Let’s look at a few articles that may shed some light on this. In the interests of fairness, I am going to exclude both Fox News and CNN from the remainder of this analysis. I know both are not accepted as legitimate by the other side, so even legitimate evidence from either source would be disregarded by the opposition anyway.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54553132

https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/emails-reveal-how-hunter-biden-tried-to-cash-in-big-with-chinese-firm/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/analysis-hunter-bidens-hard-drive-shows-firm-took-11-million-2013-2018-rcna29462

Elementary my dear Watson! Both parties are trying to bugger us!

Let’s look at some of the reporting here, shall we? According to BBC:

“The New York Post cited a purported email from Hunter Biden in August 2017 indicating he was receiving a $10m annual fee from a Chinese billionaire for “introductions alone”, though it is unclear who was involved in the alleged introductions.

“Another purported email, which Fox News said it had confirmed, reportedly refers to a deal pursued by Hunter involving China’s largest private energy firm. It is said to include a cryptic mention of “10 held by H for the big guy”.

“Fox News cited unnamed sources as saying “the big guy” in the purported email was a reference to Joe Biden. This message is said to be from May 2017. Both emails would date from when the former US vice-president was a private citizen.

“A former business associate of Hunter Biden has come forward to say he can confirm the allegations.

“Tony Bobulinski told Fox News that, contrary to Joe Biden’s statements that he had nothing to do with his son’s business affairs, Hunter had “frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals” in China….He says he asked Joe Biden’s brother, James, whether the family was concerned about possible scrutiny of the former vice-president’s involvement in a potential business deal with a Chinese entity. Mr Bobulinski told Fox News that James Biden had replied: “Plausible deniability.””

Now the New York Post, the original paper that broke the story:

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. The image is taken from the NYT article I am about to quote.

“The email is contained in a trove of data that the owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware said was recovered from a MacBook Pro laptop that was dropped off in April 2019 and never retrieved.

“The computer was seized by the FBI, and a copy of its contents made by the shop owner shared with The Post this week by former Mayor Rudy ­Giuliani.”

The NYT report continues with: “Another email — sent by Biden as part of an Aug. 2, 2017, chain — involved a deal he struck with the since-vanished chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, for half-ownership of a holding company that was expected to provide Biden with more than $10 million a year.

“Ye, who had ties to the Chinese military and intelligence service, hasn’t been seen since being taken into custody by Chinese authorities in early 2018, and CEFC went bankrupt earlier this year, according to reports.

“Biden wrote that Ye had sweetened the terms of an earlier, three-year consulting contract with CEFC that was to pay him $10 million annually “for introductions alone.””

Last of all, NBC News, the article that has most beguiled your Tired Blogger. The “Biden” in the article is Hunter, not Joe:

“Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI’s former assistant director for counterintelligence, said there is a national security risk when foreign powers like China see an opportunity to get close to someone like Biden. “It’s all about access and influence, and if you can compromise someone with both access and influence, that’s even better,” said Figliuzzi, now an NBC News contributor. “Better still if that target has already compromised himself.”

“The documents and the analysis indicate that few of [Hunter] Biden’s deals ever came to fruition and shed light on how fast he was spending his money. Expenditures compiled on his hard drive show he spent more than $200,000 per month from October 2017 through February 2018 on luxury hotel rooms, Porsche payments, dental work, and cash withdrawals. “

The report goes on: ” [Hunter} Biden made $5.8 million, more than half his total earnings from 2013 to 2018, from two deals with Chinese business interests.

Biden’s most lucrative business relationship was acting as a consultant in a project with a company that belongs to a once-powerful Chinese businessman who is now thought to be detained in his homeland. 

According to business records referred to in the Senate report, Hudson West III, a venture funded by the Chinese oil and natural gas company CEFC and its chairman, Ye Jianming, paid $4,790,375.25 to Owasco P.C. over about one year.”

I know I’m being long-winded, but I think this next part really needs to be shared, read, and considered by all and sundry: “In 2018, Chinese prosecutors accused Ye Jianming of “economic crimes,” including alleged fraud and bribery, and detained him for questioning. He hasn’t been seen in public since.

“A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told NBC News, “We are not familiar with the case you mentioned, and I’m afraid we can’t offer information on this.”

“According to the Republican Senate report, Hudson West III, CEFC, and another firm were involved in certain transactions that were “among those identified as potential efforts to layer funds.”

“The U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network describes the layering of funds as “separating the illegally obtained money from its criminal source by layering it through a series of financial transactions, which makes it difficult to trace the money back to its original source.”

“But the report doesn’t say whether or not Hunter Biden was personally involved in any transactions that were suggested to involve “layering.”

“Biden also appears to have done work for one of Ye’s business associates. Patrick Ho was convicted in U.S. federal court of bribing top officials in Chad and Uganda in pursuit of oil deals in those countries starting in September 2014. A jury found that Ho, while working for CEFC, bribed or attempted to bribe officials as much as $2 million. He was sentenced to three years in prison in March 2019 and then expelled from the U.S. at the end of his prison term. 

“Federal court filings and emails on Biden’s hard drive indicate Ho was employed by CEFC and was an associate of Ye…

“Hudson West wired Biden’s company, Owasco, $1 million from Hudson West III in March 2018 with a memo line for “Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping Representation,” according to the Senate report and emails on the Biden hard drive.

“Biden never made an appearance on the docket in Ho’s case, and there are no emails on his laptop that indicate he was involved in the legal strategy of the case or drafted any legal documents outside his suggestion of whom to use as Ho’s counsel.”

This image has nothing to do with the stuff I’m talking about. I just thought it was cool.

Some quick analysis. Mostly all I have is questions though. So Hunter Biden was getting “$10m annual fee from a Chinese billionaire for “introductions alone”.” Introductions to…whom? Also, where do I get that job? I’ll be happy to introduce you to anyone you like for $10 million a year. And you wonder why Trump’s slogan of “drain the swamp” resonates?

Who is this Tony Bobulinski guy? Is he reliable, or just someone Fox dug up to make the Bidens look bad?

Note to self: when I go into politics and become famous…be sure to pick up your damned electronics from the repair shop!

Frankly, I don’t trust mayor Rudi Juliani. Having said that…pick up your damned MacBook from the repair shop!

Why is Ye being held by the Chinese?

Why are the Chinese being so tightlipped?

Does anyone remember this term: kompromat? Anyone care to look it up? Anyone care to wonder how or if it might somehow relate to Trump, Hunter Biden, or Hillary Clinton? Just a thought.

“Layering funds,” or laundering money”? Is there any way for the grassroots folks to know if that is being perpetrated by anyone mentioned in this article?

Hunter Biden’s company Hudson West wired a cool million to Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping for a “representation” to African officials, and Dr. Ping is later convicted of bribery, but hunter Biden, owner of the company, knows nothing about it except to be asked who the good Dr. can hire as an attorney. Mr. Biden…You could have wired me half that amount and I’ll bet I would have accomplished just as much with no prison term. Granted, you’d likely see neither me, nor your money again, but the savings of half a million should sell you on the idea.

Shout out to the NSA agent monitoring this blog. Mar-A-Lago baby. Mar-A-Lago.

In the light of the Mar-A-Lago quandary…again, I have no smoking gun, no way to prove to either side that one side is right and the other wrong. If you believe that the FBI planted documents at Mar-A-Lago, why don’t you believe the FBI doctored fake emails on the laptop? If you believe the Russians tampered with the election and got Trump elected, why don’t you believe the Chinese may have done the same?

The Tired Blogger is truly tired. Next week, Snowden and Assange: were they better spies than Trump? Stay tuned!

Instead of a video this week, I thought I would share a poem that may or may not shed some light on the subject. Enjoy! Let me know in the comments if you would rather I shared more videos at the end, or if you prefer poems.

The Gods of the
Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. 

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. 

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. 

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things. 

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."  

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."  

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."  

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. 

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; 

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

It’s My Party and I’ll Lie if I Want to, Lie if I Want to, Lie if I Want to…You Would Lie Too if It Happened to You!

You can say what you want about Donald Trump, he has great taste in carpets. TMZ shared this photo and it just makes me so envious! To hell with this hardwood floor, I want this Brown carpet to hide my coffee stains. Sheesh! Is this Mar-A-Lago or my desk at work?

Happy Sunday my lovely half a century of readers! I hope I have this posted sometime by tomorrow, which will be Labor Day 2022. What better way to celebrate Labor Day than by sharing the lies of the Overlords that make us sweat in poverty while they lounge in state and dine on caviar?

I’ve been writing on the Mar-A-Lago FBI investigation. So far this will be the third post, I intend to do at least one more. Here are the links to my previous posts pertaining to the topic: https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/648

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/2861

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/2914

Before I go further, I want to say something. In my last post, I stated I had no desire to dive into the controversy about Hillary’s emails, or Hunter Biden’s laptop, but then in the next paragraph, I state that that will be in my next post. Before I had written the next paragraph I had talked to one of my best friends who is also one of my most loyal readers, and he advised that I talk about them, but do it in a separate post (as I am doing here). I understand that the paragraph is confusing. Also, on a more important topic…this likely deserves its own post, but I’ll try to keep it to a short paragraph. I think one large reason we have gotten where we are is that far too many of us have just done what was comfortable, what was expedient. I am just as guilty as anyone. If I’m going to sit here and complain about the complacency of our over-lords, the least I can do is be less complacent myself.

Grammarly says I sound sad. And gloomy. Maybe I should have put up the pic of Einstein sticking his tongue out…

Let’s start with the scandal that won Trump his Presidency: Hillary Clinton and her controversial e-mails. Most of my readers will remember that almost every news agency in 2016 was predicting that Hillary Clinton would win the Presidency. Michael Moore spoke about it in one of his documentaries. There was a confident hopefulness in the crowd and throughout the land (well…where Democrats are prevalent anyway). We were almost certain to have four years of Hillary (and why not eight) and the progress made by Obama in certain quarters would be continued with the homespun, quasi-intellectual Southern charm that was the graceful New York Senator and Secretary of State (not to mention First Lady) Hillary Clinton. The first female President after the first Black President. Could life get any better?

This site shows us how the day progressed. How the entrenched Clintons were over-confident in their win, and how the grass roots sent their howls of rage for the last few decades of excrable leadership by voting for someone who promised to “drain the swamp.” I find the wikileaks comment pretty telling. Why would we vote for Hillary Clinton? Wasn’t she the epitome of what we no longer want? We sent Obama to the Whitehouse because we were tired of the Clinton/Bush family controling our lives. Now the Democratic Party has the gall to nominate a woman who represented everything we no longer have faith in, a rich Washington insider who had not had to even drive her own car in 30 years.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/08/politics/inside-election-day-2016-as-it-happened

Walking down memory lane should be sweet, but I’m afraid this one is more bitter than sweet. Remember all the celebrities that promised to leave the US if Trump won?

Not to be judgemental but…they stayed in America. Just, ya know…saying…image from The Guardian.

At first the race was pretty neck and neck. God forgive me, I voted for Trump. I felt likely Hillary would win, but I did expect a tighter race than the media talking heads predicted. For a change, I was right. County after county turned in. States largely went as predicted, but the margins were much tighter than predicted. Rural counties saw Hillary being slaughtered, while urban counties were often overwhelmingly going to Hillary. As a small town boy, I saw (and still see) a lot of significance in this. By 8:21 pm, EST (central standard doesn’t count…everyone knows if you carry the cities you carry the country) Trump was actually ahead in the area that counts: electoral votes. He was standing at 128 to her 97. Suddenly the odds looked a lot more even. The House that was supposed to go to the Democrats was now projected to go to the Republicans. Suddenly people were tweeting that Trump’s ridiculed statements that there were a lot of people out there who had not been polled who supported him started to have credence. Democrats were starting to feel real terror.

Real, actual, unadulterated terror.

Ohio went red. Florida went red. “Lock her up” chants started spreading across Republican rallies that till a few hours before had been quiet and subdued. Democrat rallies suddenly went silent. People who had been cheering started to burst into tears. “Big doners” started tweeting their dissapointment. News outlets cranked out charts about where they had gone wrong.

I stayed up till 3 am, and a weary Trump stumbled out, in a hushed voice he gave a gracious victory speach. Hillary had conceded. He congratulated her on a great campaign, complimented her years of service to the nation, and gave some words about how “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no more.”

One of the very few people who got it right. Not only was Michael Moore one of the very few on the Left who predicted Trump’s victory, he’s the ONLY ONE I’ve seen, frankly, on either side, who totally GOT why Trump won. Image from Getty

I’ve spent quite a lot of time on something that is frankly off topic, but I do so to remind people that there were several things that upended all the predictions, but one thing that I feel really impacted the election was the whole e-mail scandal. Those who may remember the confusion, terror, or elation (depending on the side you were on at the time) often forget that Hillary was embroiled in scandal. The so-called “October Surprise.” And five years later, I feel this may have been one of the most important items that lost her the election.

The term “October Surprise” comes from the history that a last minute news story can profoundly effect a Presidential election. People won’t remember you had sex with Russian spies three months ago, but if it gets reported suddenly in October (the election being on the first Tuesday of November) everyone will remember come election day. And what happened ten days before the Clinton/Trump election? FBI director James Comey announced that the FBI was reopening the investigation of Hillary’s email accounts, an investigation everyone believed had been put to bed that Summer. Trump went on TV, announcing that a “scandal even greater than Watergate” was being perpetrated at our expense. And we believed him, because we were now used to being betrayed. Some of us voted for him. And while I would not, many would vote for him again.

If only we had elected Wierd “Al” instead.

A lot of words to get here, but I want to stress the importance. We didn’t elect her, in part, because of the e-mail investigation. So how did that scandal compare to Trump’s current difficulties with Mar-A-Lago?

I’m going to be citing these links for my information:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/09/why-the-trump-search-warrant-is-nothing-like-hillarys-emails-00050691

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/on-hillary-trump-and-whataboutism-a-response-to-my-critics/

https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/aug/25/all-they-had-do-was-ask-said-trump-timeline-nation/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/politics/hillary-clinton-james-comey.html

Shouldn’t everyone’s winter beach house be sacrosanct?

The similarities between the Hillary and the Trump scandals are as follows:

  • Both scandals are FBI investigations.
  • Both candidates claim the FBI was “out to get them,” and that the investigations were simply political efforts to destroy them.
  • Both scandals were reported to Americans as breaches of “Top Secret” security. Both sides claimed the other was either grossly negligent with sensitive material, or possibly even colluding with our enemies (Russia, China, Outer Buttfukia).
  • Both are famous wealthy people who belong to the upper .09 percent of wealth compared to the American population at large.
  • Both sides vociferously insisted that the accused be arrested as criminals.
  • As of this writing, neither side has been charged.
  • Last of all, while there is great polarization, it is an inarguable fact that a substantial percentage of Americans feel betrayed by one or both of these erstwhile political opponents.

The contrasts are as follows:

  • Polar opposites of course. Woman vs man. Democrat vs Republican.
  • One investigation involved electronic communication and the other involved actual physical record.
  • One involved a Cabinet member running for President, and the other involves an ex-President who is not currently officially running.

They look like they are singing a duet. I think they are singing The Discord of Melkor. Image from Politico.com

Some quotes from my sources before I tell you my two cents.

From Politico:

“A day before Joe Biden’s inauguration, Trump named seven administration officials as his representatives to the National Archives. Among them were his chief of staff, Mark Meadows; White House counsel Pat Cipollone; his deputies Patrick Philbin, Scott Gast and Michael Purpura; national security attorney John Eisenberg; and Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel chief Steven Engel.

“Engel has testified to the Jan. 6 select committee about his resistance to Trump’s plan to remove Justice Department leaders and replace them with compliant officials who would support his effort to remain in power. Cipollone also testified about his concerns with the legality of some of Trump allies’ attempts to overturn the results of the election.

“It’s unclear whether all seven of the officials remain authorized representatives for Trump, but the former president has also recently added at least two additional representatives: reporter John Solomon and former Pentagon official Kash Patel.

“Patel told Breitbart in May that Trump had declassified the materials he removed to Mar-a-Lago, even though the documents still had classified markings on them. As president, Trump had total power to declassify any classified material in the government’s possession.”

From nationalreview:

“I’d like to respond to three critiques of my Corner post from yesterday, titled “Yes, Her Emails.” In it, I argue that “anyone — either on the anti-Trump left or the Trump-skeptical right,”

who thinks that the FBI and Department of Justice’s credibility can survive in the eyes of the average, normie American if it prosecutes Donald J. Trump on very, very similar mishandling-of-classified-documents charges that Hillary [Clinton] avoided with nary a slap on the wrist is naïve to the point of lunacy.”

Also:

“If Trump is shown to have broken the law, he deserves to face the consequences of his actions.

“But it is not excusing or defending Trump to point out that every decision has a cost as well as a benefit.

“I am much less concerned about Trump facing the music in this matter than I am about holding the Republic together. You’re free to disagree — after all, it’s a free country — but I believe that the best way to move past Trump is through politics, not lawfare. A shortsighted focus on putting Trump in the dock may be satisfying to his enemies, but they’re not the ones who need convincing that this process is fair. Like it or not — and entirely to Trump’s demagogic discredit — millions upon millions of Americans believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that the institutions and powers of government have been unfairly used against him in a years-long “witch hunt.” You may not believe that. Hell, I don’t believe that. But something like a full third of the country does.”

From politifact: In responce to Trump’s statement, “All they had to do is ask” we have a long and detailed timeline of requests and actions, including the following:

“June 3: Justice Department officials travel to Mar-a-Lago, where they briefly meet with Trump, and retrieve more documents marked classified, according to The New York Times. A Trump lawyer signs a declaration indicating that all the materials marked classified were turned over, the Times and others reported. Trump’s attorneys later confirmed the June 3 visit and document retrieval.

“At some point after the June 3 visit, investigators had learned that there could still be more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, according to reporting in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that cited unnamed sources.

“June 22: Trump is served with another subpoena, this time for surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s attorneys would later acknowledge receipt of the June 22 subpoena, writing in a court filing: “At President Trump’s direction, service of that subpoena was voluntarily accepted, and responsive video footage was provided to the government.”

“Aug. 8: The FBI, with a search warrant in hand, searches Mar-a-Lago, removing another 25 boxes of documents. According to a receipt released by the Justice Department, the documents include “various classified/TS/SCI documents.” TS/SCI stands for top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. There are also four sets of documents described as “Miscellaneous Top Secret” and three others listed as “Miscellaneous Secret.”

“Aug. 11: Attorney General Merrick Garland says in a public address that the Justice Department had exhausted efforts to retrieve the material in other ways. “The department does not take such a decision lightly,” Garland said. “Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”

Last of all, from The New York Times just in case anyone thinks I’m being too easy on Hillary Clinton:

“Mrs. Clinton’s instinct to shun any personal responsibility angered some Democrats. Several donors on the call, while deeply bitter about Mr. Comey’s actions, said they believed that Mrs. Clinton and her campaign had suffered avoidable missteps that handed the election to an unacceptable opponent. They pointed to the campaign’s lack of a compelling message for white working-class voters and to decisions years ago by Mrs. Clinton to use a private email address at the State Department and to accept millions of dollars for speeches to Wall Street.

“There is a special place in hell for Clinton staff, allegedly including Cheryl Mills, that okayed the email server setup,” Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former senior aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, wrote on Sidewire, a social media site, referring to a longtime aide and lawyer to Mrs. Clinton.”

No, I’m not taking a side. I just like the gif.

Now for a Tired Bloggers two cents. After reading all of these sites (and a few more that either said the exact same things or were wastes of time) I conclude that, I can’t know.

Neither can you. We want to trust the media to do their jobs, but most of us don’t anymore. Why the hell do you think Trump won in the first place? And don’t kid yourselves. Trump didn’t lose the last election because it was stolen, nor because of Media collusion with the left. Trump lost because he is just too much of an ass. A friend of mine said “Yeah, I know he is a jerk, but sometimes it takes a jerk to get the job done.” Nothing wrong with that thinking…except at some point people get fed up with the jerks. Sometimes you are so much of a jerk you get your ass handed to you in a back ally. I’m sorry Donald Trump, that is what happened.

As for the investigation, I’m not done with the series so I won’t declare I’ve made up my mind yet, but in my mind (I’ll offend a LOT of my liberal friends here) Hillary Clinton may not deserve to go to jail, but she mishandled top secret information. Don’t get me wrong, I doubt I would have done much better. But…that’s why I don’t go into politics. Both Hillary and Trump felt they were above the law. They both feel like they are better than the rest of us, and the rules don’t apply to them. Both have spent the last 30 years with silver spoons in their mouths, and the FBI comes along (don’t get me wrong, I see the FBI as a bunch of bullies too), and dares to suggest they take the damned spoon out of their mouths long enough to answer the American people.

Hillary lost the election due to her hubris. Honestly, I don’t hold any ill feelings towards these folks. I hope she has learned her lesson, lives happily ever after as an also ran, and the FBI leaves her alone. But make no mistake, the general Republican voter, right or wrong, sees no difference between what Hillary did, and what Trump did. She was let go, and we are going to charge Trump. Well…again, I’m not going to draw a conclusion yet. I have two (or three or four) more posts to write on this subject. But if the Democrats think the this will do anything for their cause other than to bring hell down around all of our ears, then they are as foolish as Trump.

I’m not saying don’t go after Trump. But if you do, 1) it has to be something worth breaking up the Republic. What could that possibly be? 2) If you do go after him, understand that you will have to make it perfectly crystal clear that this is not about politics, it is about justice. And understand, there is a dangerous percentage of people that are past caring, and just wanna see it burn.

Sometimes a Tired Blogger doesn’t know what to say.

In the end though, neither side listens to the other. Mr. Worf, I see no intelligent life her. Ahead Warp Factor Two. Engage!

Next post, the Tired Blogger compares Donald Trump’s dellima to Hunter Biden’s bind. Stay tuned next Wedsnesday for more tired blogging!

Please…no matter which side you are on, even if you think I’m totally full of schtuff…listen to this.

For Your Eyes Only? Buncha Whooey! I’ll Do Whatever I WANT With This Classified Shtuff.

My third cousin Edward Snowden. Until Donald Trump, this man was considered the most controversial spy in modern American history. Shout out to the NSA agent monitoring this blog, I have no documents from Mr. Snowden. And remember darlin’ the safe word is still “Mar-A-Lago.”

Good morning Viet…er, I mean howdy yall! This is your Tired Midnight Blogger (what blogs at Midnight), filling the internet with more words arranged in marginally coherent sentences. Like everyone else out there, I’m trying to make sense of this crazy world, and I have a shade of over fifty followers reading to my wild rants of rage against a world I never made. (Or maybe that was Howard the Duck).

My latest pointless skirmish with reality has been to grapple with the reports about Trump and Mar-A-Lago. I haven’t discussed much what has actually been going on there, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and MOUSE have better resources for investigating, and more importantly, they will do you the service of not merely reporting on the subject (if you are lucky, honestly I don’t doubt half the time they are actually obfuscating, but I digress), they will also insult your intelligence by doing your thinking for you. So, while my thinking is likely half-baked, let’s dive into the next topic of the series: Are there other folks (whether President, Congressmen, or Cabinet officials) who have done similar things, and what were the consequences (if any) for these people?

Chip: Shall we begin?

Dale: Let’s shall!

This chap surely has no secrets to hide. Here we have Hunter Biden at an Easter Egg hunt at the White House. Wonder if any of the eggs were bugged? Perhaps “A113” was painted on one of them…

Espionage is as American as apple pie. Washington may or may not have been a masterful general, but he was wise in his delegation of building up spy rings and made masterful use of the intelligence he gained. “In November 1778, George Washington charged Major Benjamin Tallmadge with creating a spy ring in New York City, the site of British headquarters. Tallmadge led the creation of the Culper Spy Ring, recruiting friends to work as his informants.” He also had a double agent working for him, one of the unsung black heroes of the Revolution. James Armistead Lafayette gained intelligence for Washington on the traitor Benedict Arnold and ultimately gathered key information on Lord Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown. The British defeat at Yorktown is often accounted for as the American (and French, don’t forget them) victory that won the war.

James Armistead Lafayette, a double agent without whom we might not have our liberty today. He was emancipated for his service to his country. I honestly don’t mean to take any sides here, but I can’t help but wonder where we would be if Washington had been careless with where he left his papers. Just a thought. Image and the above information from https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/spying-and-espionage/american-spies-of-the-revolution/#:~:text=In%20November%201778%2C%20George%20Washington,to%20work%20as%20his%20informants.

I don’t mean for this post to be a history of espionage. Specifically, I want to learn if it is common in our history for leadership to be careless with key defense information. This post (while likely I will make some snarky comments, I am, after all, a Tired Blogger) is not intended to either condemn or exonerate Trump. I’m trying to wrap my head around the context since we keep being told that these are things unparalleled in American history, and I want to do my own digging to see if that is true and share my findings with you folks.

The first instance of bungling American intelligence that I can find goes back to the very Revolution I just discussed. The Hutchinson Papers were letters written by Massachusetts Colonial Governor Hutchinson. “

Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor of Massachusetts and a loyalist, wrote a series of private letters criticizing Colonial leaders and calling for a stronger British military presence in Boston. In December of that year, a political opponent of Hutchinson leaked the letters to Benjamin Franklin, who was living in England at the time. Franklin passed the letters on to some radical friends in the Colonies, requesting they be kept confidential. But the Boston Gazette published the letters in June 1773, spurring public disgust for Hutchinson, who fled to England.

“Franklin’s actual intent in sharing the letters was to dissipate resentment of the British by shifting the blame to Hutchinson. But after the incident, Franklin was sent back to America, where he would help found the fledgling United States.” https://www.livescience.com/37357-us-intelligence-leaks.html

War! Good God Y’all, What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing! Say it Again! Ol’ Uncle Ben sure said some cool stuff. Yes, he was clumsy with state secrets. In the end, though, it turned out the best for us. I wonder how the Mar-A-Lago fiasco will end up for us. I think likely the above quote is either bogus, or at least strongly paraphrased, but I like it, and it fits well with the topic, so stuff it critics!

Uncle Ben was no master spy, he shared information with people he thought he could trust. In a sense he was wrong, but serendipitously this ended up helping our nation. Before this mistake, Franklin was still loyal to the crown. He loved England. He was actually living in London at the time. After the papers were published back in the colonies, the Revolutionary fires that had been smoldering took flame, and the English government was furious with Franklin. They turned on him, after this snafu, and let him know the true colors of tyranny.

http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/hutchinson-affair/#:~:text=During%20the%20hearing%20and%20in,a%20thief%20and%20of%20dishonor.

“The letters were correspondence of Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson and Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver with English authorities.  In these letters Hutchinson explained the revolts in the colony against taxes and recommended that colonial government should be made independent from provincial assemblies and the gradual reduction “by degrees” of English liberties. He also urged to send more troops to keep rebels under control advocating repressive measures against agitators in the colonies.

“Understanding the nature of these letters, Franklin sent them to Samuel Adams who was the head of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence. Franklin authorized the letters to be shown to members of the Committee but not copied or published.

“Massachusetts Speaker Thomas Cushing wrote a letter to Franklin asking if he could ease the restriction of its circulation. Because of its inflammatory nature, Cushin presented the content of the letters before the Massachusetts House on June 2nd, 1773. The House concluded that Hutchinson intended to overthrow the constitution and decided to appoint a committee to petition the crown for Hutchinson’s and Oliver’s removal. Despite Franklin’s wishes and because of public interest the letters were published in the Boston Gazette in June 1773 causing political and civil revolt in the city.”

Benjamin Franklin on trial in Britain for High Treason and Theft. This trial convinced him that Britain was no friend to America, and was in fact our enemy. But this happened because of the leak of the Hutchinson Papers. Britain’s most illustrious proponent for conciliation learned that appeasing tyrants doesn’t do very much.

On January 29, 1774, “Franklin appeared before the Privy Council supposedly to hear if the British government would approve a petition by Massachusetts to replace the current governor, Thomas Hutchinson, and lieutenant governor, Andrew Oliver.”

But in the shifty backstabbing ways bullies have, Franklin was being set up for a fall. “We’re just here to see how your stores look” doesn’t take long to turn into “This just screams out dumbass.” And alas, not kidding.

The next quote is from https://www.amphilsoc.org/blog/how-alexander-wedderburn-cost-england-america

“Franklin appeared in the Cockpit, so named because cock fights occurred there during the reign of Henry VIII. Alexander Wedderburn, solicitor general, spoke for the government. Wedderburn was a competent, ambitious Scot who could bend with the political winds in the service of his king.”

“The meeting was well-attended by distinguished people, mostly sympathetic to the government’s position. Franklin had some distinguished supporters of his own, including Edmund Burke and Joseph Priestley.

“Wedderburn spoke for over an hour, not about the merits of the petition but about the letters, Massachusetts, and Franklin’s character. “Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred,” he bellowed. Franklin “has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men.” “He will henceforth call it a libel to be called a man of letters,” a pun on Franklin’s position as postmaster. Wedderburn declared, with a sly reference to Franklin’s experiments with electricity, that he “stands in the light of the first mover and prime conductor of this whole contrivance against his Majesty’s two Governors” and accused Franklin and the radical coterie in Massachusetts of spreading sedition.

“Through it all, Franklin stood still, showing no emotion, “conspicuously erect, without the smallest movement of any part of his body,” his unchanging expression tranquil and placid. His dignity and forbearance made him the strongest presence in a room full of powerful men.

“After the diatribe, Wedderburn declared that he was ready to examine the witness, Franklin replied that he did not choose to be examined. After the chamber was cleared of spectators, the Privy Council turned down the petition.

“The attack on Franklin was almost too much for him to bear. But then he learned the next day that he had been removed as postmaster…His character had been attacked, his work for conciliation ignored, his contributions to efficient government in the colonies dismissed. From then on, Franklin would work for American independence.”

“During the hearing and in front of the Privy Council, Franklin was accused by British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn of illegally obtaining the letters to incite rebellion in the colonies. He was accused of being a thief and of dishonor.” http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/hutchinson-affair/#:~:text=During%20the%20hearing%20and%20in,a%20thief%20and%20of%20dishonor.

Like Jesus before Pilate, Uncle Ben remained silent through the accusations. Unlike Jesus, my uncle did NOT turn the other cheek. He sailed back home to Philadelphia and became a patriot bent on Freedom from British tyranny.

It’s all about the Pentiums baby.

I know I’ve gone into a lot of detail here, but I’ve done it because I think there are lessons to be learned. On one hand, this was information Franklin distributed to people he felt needed to know, whereas Trump (as far as I know) simply had the information in his basement at Mar-A-Lago. And Trump is an ex-President, whereas at the time Franklin was a Colonial Postmaster for Britain and a de-facto Ambassador of sorts between the colonies he loved and the kingdom he loved. Trump has been impeached twice, and Franklin suffered humiliation and demotion from a kangaroo court (not even a trial of his peers, as there was no true jury). Trump is not yet on trial for mishandling the documents when he does…I honestly have no idea how espionage cases are tried. I know Edward Snowden has requested a jury trial and has been denied. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/snowden-espionage-civil-disobedience/ So…Trump might not be tried by a jury of his peers? Then who does try him? And can we trust that tribunal to be any fairer than the one that persecuted Ben Franklin? I have no dog in this fight, I don’t like Trump and did not vote for him in the last election, but I can’t help but see that this commotion, right or wrong, is only making his following love him more. His followers at the base are largely those who have felt oppressed for the last thirty years. They feel the investigation to be nothing short of a raid on one of their own. As the Colonists did, right or wrong, in ’74.

What is the difference between a patriot and a tyrant? In our dumbed-down era, would we know the difference?

Are there any more recent examples? Possibly Uncle Ben’s snafu was too long ago to matter to most of my readers.

Let’s jump ahead to my lifetime. The President when I was born was Richard Milhouse Nixon. Until Trump was elected, I think it was likely that Nixon was the most hated President. He is also one of the big reasons why Trump is finding himself in trouble.

Two major intelligence leakages happened in the early seventies. One was the leak of the Pentagon Papers, and the other was Watergate.

According to http://www.census.gov the median age of a US citizen is 38.2. So the average citizen has no memory of the Vietnam War. It tore our nation apart, and that chasm has never really healed. A lot of people blame the liberal media and the hippy movement for the decline of the nation’s trust in the government, and I won’t say there is no truth to such arguments. But I believe the biggest factor in the government losing our trust is simple.

They lied to us.

I believe this to be the central precept of the American government since the time I was born.

The purpose of this post is not to dig deep into history, still less the history of the Vietnam War. (Though I spent a bit of time on Uncle Ben. He’s my hero though, so forgive me if I wanted to spend some time with him. Nixon on the other hand…) But the American loss of trust in the government which began in the fifties with the Korean War went full tilt in the late sixties, and while it recovered a little in the eighties and nineties, the new(ish) century is proving to be as chock full of lies as any other.

The Pentagon Papers were a classified history of American involvement in Indochina from the end of WW II to the late sixties. According to Britannica.com, “They were turned over (without authorization) to The New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg, a senior research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies.” Originally Ellsberg was very enthusiastic about what America was doing in the region, but as time went on he had more and more compunction about our activities there. Finally, he leaked this secret history to the press, and all hell broke loose.

I think this one says it all. Injured Gunnery Sergeant Jeremiah Purdie is vainly reaching out to assist his CO, who is already dead. These men were betrayed by a cynical, power-hungry government. An iconic image from https://time.com/vietnam-photos/

The American people learned from these papers that they had been lied to for twenty-five years, and it seemed as though the hippies who had said the government was lying to us were not wrong.

“On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing a series of articles based on the study, which was classified as “top secret” by the federal government. After the third daily installment appeared in the Times, the U.S. Department of Justice obtained in U.S. District Court a temporary restraining order against further publication of the classified material, contending that further public dissemination of the material would cause “immediate and irreparable harm” to U.S. national defense interests.

“The Times—joined by The Washington Post, which also was in possession of the documents—fought the order through the courts for the next 15 days, during which time publication of the series was suspended. On June 30, 1971, in what is regarded as one of the most significant prior-restraint cases in history, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6–3 decision freed the newspapers to resume publishing the material. The court held that the government had failed to justify restraint of publication.”

“Meanwhile, Daniel Ellsberg, who had originally helped research and write the Pentagon Papers, (and who was one of the oft-cited analysts who had written a seminal work on Game Theory and Economics called Risk, Ambiguity, and Decision) was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917. Do you remember that one…? I posted about it Monday…if you have forgotten or haven’t read it (for shame!) I’ll post it here.

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/2861

Another article from Britannica.com tells how this scandal nearly destroyed Ellsberg, but instead led to the end of the Nixon Presidency:

“Ellsberg was indicted under the Espionage Act, and the charges leveled against him could have resulted in up to 115 years in prison. The trial against Ellsberg, which began in January 1973, lasted four months and concluded with the dismissal of all charges after evidence of gross governmental misconduct came to light. John D. Ehrlichman, an adviser to Pres. Richard M. Nixon had utilized a team of “plumbers”—so named for their ability to “repair leaks” and later made famous by their role in the Watergate break-in—to burglarize the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in an unsuccessful effort to uncover embarrassing or harmful material. Cleared of wrongdoing, Ellsberg devoted the rest of his life to peace activism and academia.”

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Daniel-Ellsberg

So you have to ask yourself…is Trump Daniel Ellsberg in this story…or is he Richard Nixon?

Since very few remember Watergate, I’ll give Cliff’s Notes version of that fiasco. I’ve already shared a bit about it tangentially, but both for fun and for reader illumination let’s dig a bit deeper.

As we’ve seen, Nixon suffered a major setback with the leaking of The Pentagon Papers. Frankly, the book made every President back to Truman look bad, but Nixon happened to hold the office then, and his hard-line conservative politics were easy for the liberal left wing to hate. He overreacted to the challenges thrown at him. His organization the Committee to Re-Elect the President (lovingly referred to as CREEP) was made up of…shall we say…unscrupulous folks. Some of these fellows broke into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Watergate. They stole documents and left bugs to spy on the opposition. They were evidently not professional spies, since the bugs failed to work. In desperation, they returned to repair their work. A security guard called the police, and the wannabe CIA agents were caught.

Nixon denied any connection to these thugs. Americans believed him (likely we wanted to believe him). He was reelected with the greatest landslide since James Monroe. Eighteen million more voters selected Nixon instead of McGovern, a record still held to this day for the biggest number of popular votes over an opponent. The Electoral Vote stood at 520 for Nixon and 17 for McGovern. Nixon and his team were elated. Nixon had campaigned that the media was liberal, out to get him. The Newspapers and TV reporters were liars and crooks, and he “was not a crook.” The silent majority of Americans had seen through the lies and had voted intelligently.

President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew must have been ecstatic on Nov. 7, 1972. They had won the greatest Presidential mandate in nearly 150 years. You can debate who is more moral, but you have to admit, looking simply at numbers, Nixon was a profoundly better politician than Trump.

I would give a great deal for Nixon’s fairy tale to have been true, but it turned out to be largely lies cooked up to dupe the public. While looking in our eyes and saying these things, an informer, Mark Felt, a high-ranking FBI official, shared what he knew with the press. Nixon gathered hundreds of thousands of dollars to bribe the burglars to silence. Nixon then attempted to pit the CIA against the FBI to impede the investigation. It was discovered that Nixon recorded all of his conversations. Investigators demanded these tapes. Nixon at first refused to give them up, arguing that whatever a President does cannot be a crime.

Who was a better President? Donald Trump, or Richard Nixon? Comments below…

Seven of Nixon’s staff were indicted on charges related to Watergate. By July of 1973, the Supreme Court stepped in, ordering Nixon to turn over his tapes. The Justice Department appointed Archibald Cox, who had worked for JFK, to be Special Prosecutor. Nixon insisted on Cox dismissal when he also demanded the tapes. Several top officials at the Justice Department resigned in protest over the event on Saturday, October 20, 1973. This was dubbed the “Saturday Night Massacre.” Finally, Nixon caved in, surrendered his tapes, and Congress began proceedings to impeach him. Nixon resigned, the only President to do so, on August 8, 1974.

Remember…only Nixon can go to China.

What Trump did at Mar-A-Lago would have been perfectly legal before 1978. Because of all the shenanigans with Nixon, Congress decided to remove future ambiguity and passed a law declaring Presidential documents were no longer the property of the individual President but of the US government.

https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html

To quote from this site: “The Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978, 44 U.S.C. ß2201-2209, governs the official records of Presidents and Vice Presidents that were created or received after January 20, 1981 (i.e., beginning with the Reagan Administration). The PRA changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents, and subsequently NARA, must manage the records of their Administrations.”

The site lists quite a few regulations that pertain to the Presidential records Act. (NARA being the “National Archives and Records Administration“). Here they are:

Specifically, the PRA:

  • Establishes public ownership of all Presidential records and defines the term Presidential records.
  • Requires that Vice-Presidential records be treated in the same way as Presidential records.
  • Places the responsibility for the custody and management of incumbent Presidential records with the President.
  • Requires that the President and his staff take all practical steps to file personal records separately from Presidential records.
  • Allows the incumbent President to dispose of records that no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value, once the views of the Archivist of the United States on the proposed disposal have been obtained in writing.
  • Establishes in law that any incumbent Presidential records (whether textual or electronic) held on courtesy storage by the Archivist remain in the exclusive legal custody of the President and that any request or order for access to such records must be made to the President, not NARA.
  • Establishes that Presidential records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the Archivist as soon as the President leaves office.
  • Establishes a process by which the President may restrict and the public may obtain access to these records after the President leaves office; specifically, the PRA allows for public access to Presidential records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) beginning five years after the end of the Administration, but allows the President to invoke as many as six specific restrictions to public access for up to twelve years.
  • Codifies the process by which former and incumbent Presidents conduct reviews for executive privilege prior to public release of records by NARA (which had formerly been governed by Executive order 13489).
  • Establishes procedures for Congress, courts, and subsequent Administrations to obtain “special access” to records from NARA that remain closed to the public, following a privilege review period by the former and incumbent Presidents; the procedures governing such special access requests continue to be governed by the relevant provisions of E.O. 13489.
  • Establishes preservation requirements for official business conducted using non-official electronic messaging accounts:  any individual creating Presidential records must not use non-official electronic messaging accounts unless that individual copies an official account as the message is created or forwards a complete copy of the record to an official messaging account.  (A similar provision in the Federal Records Act applies to federal agencies.)
  • Prevents an individual who has been convicted of a crime related to the review, retention, removal, or destruction of records from being given access to any original records.

I’m glad I looked that up! I’m so much less confused now. Now my question is…how well has this procedure been followed in the past? According to Axios.com: “What happened to the 30 million pages of documents taken from the White House to Chicago by Barack Hussein Obama?” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “He refused to give them back!” https://www.axios.com/2022/08/12/national-archives-counters-trumps-claims-obama-took-classified-documents

For that matter, has any other President ever given NARA trouble with their documents? Is Trump the only one? I looked up whether Reagan had given NARA any trouble. I came across some interesting sites, but the only one that bears on the current issue says nothing but that George W. used an executive order to amend the PRA of 1978 (odd…I thought laws were passed by Congress. Then Obama rescinded Bush’s order, ostensibly reverting the law back to the original. But I can find nothing on how cooperative Reagan was or was not. https://www.thereaganfiles.com/the-pra-and-the-reagan.html

According to the NARA website, the transfer of documents between Bush W and Obama was the smoothest in their history: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/winter/presidential-transitions

Quoting Axios.com again: “The National Archives said it moved about 30 million pages of unclassified records from the Obama administration to a facility that it maintains in Chicago. Classified documents remain in a facility in Washington, D.C.” Evidently they went on the offensive against Trump to defend Obama. Likely this does look a bit suspicious to those of us who don’t trust the government, but personally…I see little reason why NARA would jump into the argument if it weren’t true. What do you think? Does this add weight in your eyes to Trump’s claims, or does this discredit his claims?

Other than this, I honestly find very little…wait.

Finally, after doing some really fancy digging on the internet, I found something that at least very remotely compares:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-ex-clinton-aide-hid-documents/

Hey, look Hillary! Trump is having a terrible time! Oh crap! The Tired Blogger found something. Image from CNBC

“President Clinton’s national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency’s internal watchdog said Wednesday.

“The report was issued more than a year after Sandy Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removing the documents.

Berger took the documents in the fall of 2003 while working to prepare himself and Clinton administration witnesses for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission. Berger was authorized as the Clinton administration’s representative to make sure the commission got the correct classified materials.”

Ok, I’ll admit, this is not (I assume) 15 boxes of classified stuff. But…are we so sure this is materially different from what Trump has done? So what happened in this case? Because I frankly don’t remember it.

According to CBS: “Berger pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents. He was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.”

Essentially, Berger was confronted, and it turned out he tore three documents into little pieces and threw them in the trash.

So while the Clintons have the email scandal that, let’s face it, won Trump the Presidency the first time, they also have a National Security Advisor who wanted to hide something so badly, he risked jail time to hide the evidence.

Evidently, a lot of cartoonists had fun with this one. This is my favorite of them all. “I stole all the Whoppers, I would be a Tired Blogger if I only had a brain.” Image from http://www.cagle.com, Kevin Sier’s cartoon from 7/22/2004.

One last time…how does what Trump did compare to what Sandy Berger did? Does the different levels of power matter? Should Trump have to pay a large fine and do community service? And I know I likely should…but I have no desire to do justice to the many comparisons between Hillary’s computer, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and what Trump did…mainly because the real journalists either are or ought to be making these comparisons themselves. Let me know in the comments if you would like me to do my own take on the issue.

As usual, while I’ve learned a lot, I feel I haven’t a definitive smoking gun to proclaim Trump innocent or guilty. Let me know what you think in the comments. In the meanwhile, in my next post, I will compare Trump’s Mar-A-Lago situation to Hillary Clinton’s computer debacle, the Hunter Biden Lap Top, and perhaps most relevant of all, Edward Snowden. Stay tuned Monday for more Tired Blogging!

What do you guys think? Is NARA just part of a left-wing conspiracy? Or is the Donald full of Trump? Let me know in the comments below. In the meanwhile, make mine Marvel!

Never Have I Ever Been Charged For Violating the Espionage Act

Have you seen any of these guys at Mar-A_Lago?

Happy Monday ya’ll from the Tired Midnight Blogger. While it isn’t Monday yet, I thought I’d take a moment before I get hauled off to the Chateau D’iff for espionage to give a Tired Bloggers take on the whole Donald Trump espionage et trios Maralegal fiasco. I would ask how we ended up here, but more and more I feel the question is, “How have we stayed this far from the precipice so long?”

Last week I asked the question of whether or not the police are no more than the standing army of the Hegemony. I didn’t answer that question, though I hope I left enough information to cause people to do their own thinking about the subject. Let me start today’s inquiry with a query. If the police are the standing army of the Hegemony, what does that make the FBI?

I’ve written a post about J. Edgar Hoover (no relation to Edgar Allen Poe). I’ll leave the link here for those who wish to read or review that information.

https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/648

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was J. Edgar Hoover’s mentor. It was under this man’s direction that the notorious Palmer Raids of the Red Scare occurred in 1919-1920. Ironically, there was a pandemic going on then, too…I honestly hope this has nothing to do with the Hegemony because frankly, I think they need new ideas.

Here I’m going to discuss three things for the edification of those who, like me, are desperately trying to make sense of the whole Mar-a-Lago malady.

Depending on time frames and reader demand, I may make this a multi-part series.

  • 1) The history of the Espionage Act of 1917. What kind of historical company is Trump involved with? (Why is a Dead South song running through my head?)
  • 2) Are there other folks (whether President, Congressmen, or Cabinet officials) who have done similar things, and what were the consequences (if any) for these people?
  • 3) Both parties accuse the other party of weaponizing the FBI for political persecution. Does either party have a legitimate claim? If both do, which one has the best claim? Who drew first blood in this war of allegations?

Let’s begin, shall we? Let’s shall!

Rarely has a Congressional Act created more protest and outrage than the Espionage Act of 1917. It was enacted by a frightened Congress who, after years of promising to keep us out of WWI, suddenly responded with outrage to the sinking of the cruise liner ship The Lusitania. Image from billofrightsinstitute.org

As the name implies, the Espionage Act of 1917 was passed in 1917. The United States had remained neutral during the First World War, but our neutrality was strained by unrestrained submarine warfare in the Atlantic and Pacific. The British had an overall naval superiority, and their blockade was literally causing starvation in Germany. Desperate to end the blockade, Germany, which had superior submarine warships at the time, retaliated by attacking any and all non-Central Powered ships. Flag opposition in the German ranks to this strategy was censored with dismissal. When the German U boat U-20 allegedly sank the Lusitania, all bets were off. The luxury liner was actually a British ship, and as such the Germans felt it was a fair target. But there were 123 American citizens that lost their lives included in the total death toll of 1195.

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg believed the all-out sinking of noncombatant’s vessels would accomplish nothing but to bring the US and possibly other nations into the war against Germany. He was proven correct, but this did not save his career. The military forced his resignation on on 13 July 1917. Image from https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/wwi#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20later%20declared,Hungary%20on%20December%207%2C%201917.&text=Germany’s%20resumption%20of%20submarine%20attacks,States%20into%20World%20War%20I.

The Germans had bet that they could end the war before the Americans could get to the conflict. They lost this bet, partially because along with sinking the Lusitania, we got our hands on the infamous Zimmerman telegram. The Germans decided to send a proposal to the Mexican president offering German support should Mexico decide to declare war on the US. The British intercepted this telegram and sent it to US officials. The translation runs: “We make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” Mexican president Venustiano Carranza studied the proposal carefully, but decided that the risk of invading the US was too great, since the Germans were an ocean away, and the American navy, he felt, would easily blockade any support the Germans might send. He also did not want the headache of trying to naturalize former American citizens if they should happen to win. It was actually a pretty intelligent cost/benefit analysis. Maybe the Germans should have put Carranza in charge of their military. At any rate, enraged Americans joined the war, the rest is literally history. And not all of it paints the US in a positive light.

Mexican president Venustiano Carranza with delegates for the Mexican Constitutional Convention. I can’t blame the guy for not wanting a war with the US. He was trying to pull his country together, and while war does pull people together, there had been so much bloodshed in recent Mexican Revolutions. Image from https://mexiconewsdaily.com/mexicolife/why-constitution-day/. Much of the information above was from https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/unrestricted-u-boat-warfare and https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/wwi#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20later%20declared,Hungary%20on%20December%207%2C%201917.&text=Germany’s%20resumption%20of%20submarine%20attacks,States%20into%20World%20War%20I.

Harking back to the Palmer Raids, this law was the backbone behind the original Red Scare just a shade over a hundred years back. Quoting Yahoo News: “the act prohibited obtaining or disclosing information related to national defense if it could be used at the expense of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation. In 1918, a set of amendments prohibited speech considered disloyal or abusive to the United States.” Now, let me pause one moment. People have been saying a lot about how Trump claims erroneously that the “President cannot break the law.” I’m not going to argue either the legitimacy of that theory or argue the facts of whether he actually said this or not. But I wish to point out…as President, he perforce obtained such information as President. Every President since Washington has had “information related to national defense.” So logically, it can’t apply to any President. The question would then be, did he either 1) use the information by disclosing it to a foreign power, or 2) did he say something disloyal in the documents? At this point, the wording of the accusation, at least in Yahoo News, is a touch too vague for me to feel confident about saying that Trump was guilty (or innocent) of violating The Espionage Act of 1917.

The front page of the Chicago Federation of Labor’s newspaper, The New Majority, January 10, 1920, features an article that describes the Palmer Raids as terrorism. Image from https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-Mitchell-Palmer

But I digress too much. Let’s keep digging into the history. The Act was passed, and as we often do, we traded our freedoms for false security. AG Palmer (he looks like a cheerful chap, doesn’t he?) used the act to purge America of Communists. Don’t get me wrong, I get the fear he felt. And as I stated in my (all too short) post about Hoover, we saw the horrors that were going on in Europe. There were actual terrorist actions even in the states that likely persuaded many that these acts were necessary. Even political opposition had become a wicked tool in the Kaiser’s arsenal. “Come come! We must confound Jerry at every turn!” Palmer ordered thousands of raids, thousands of deportations. In the Britannica.com article sited about, we learn that “He deported the self-avowed anarchist Emma Goldman and others suspected of subversive activities. On January 2, 1920, government agents in 33 cities rounded up thousands of persons, many of whom were detained without charge for long periods. The disregard of basic civil liberties during the “Palmer raids,” as they came to be known, drew widespread protest and ultimately discredited Palmer, who nevertheless justified his program as the only practical means of combating what he believed was a Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. Although he lost the Democratic presidential nomination in 1920, Palmer remained active in the Democratic Party until his death, campaigning for, among others, presidential candidates Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

Yahoo News tells us that a film producer was convicted and sent to prison for making the film The Spirit of ’76. He was accused of being seditious because the film undermined our ally, Great Britain.

This is no joke. The archives of the New York Public Library confirm this was a real court case producer Robert Goldstein lost. Here is a quote: ” building its case against Goldstein—ironically named United States v. “The Spirit of ’76”—the government asserted that Goldstein had knowingly made a pro-German propaganda movie with the intent to impugn the nation’s allies, foment disloyalty, and impede the U.S. military’s conscription efforts.  Goldstein countered, to no avail, that his main motivation in making the picture had been financial—that he believed a movie dealing with America’s victory in the War of Independence would have broad box-office appeal, given the patriotic mood of the country.   The atrocities committed in the film by British soldiers were, he further contended, historically accurate and necessary to the plot.” Goldstein was convicted by a jury of his peers, sentenced to ten years in a Federal Prison, and fined $5,000. Take that patriotism!

The news article detailing the trial. I feel better about this law already! Thank God I was saved from watching a silent film about the greatness of George Washington. The film actually has an IMDB page. Feel free to look it up, but from what I can gather no copies of the film are extant. Image and quote above from https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/07/30/us-v-spirit-76

So who all has been charged in more recent times under this act? Let’s go back to Yahoo News to answer that question:

“The law has been used to prosecute spies and leakers. Those accused of spying under the act include Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the 1950s for purportedly giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union; Aldrich Ames, a CIA officer, who was charged for revealing the identities of American informants to the Soviet Union in 1994; and Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 after confessing to selling secrets to the Russians.

“Prominent leak cases involving the act include that of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers by photocopying the secret history of the Vietnam War and giving it to The New York Times. He was initially charged with a felony under the Espionage Act, but the charges were later dismissed.

“Reality Winner, a former military contractor, was not so lucky. In 2018, she was sentenced to five years in prison for leaking a classified intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 election to The Intercept.”

Let’s not forget this controversial figure. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks and notorious whistle-blower. Is this man a hero, or a most dangerous spy? Let me know in the comments. Image from britannica.com

That’s great Tired Blogger. What does all this have to do with Donald Trump? We now have a thorough list of some of the people the law has been used to prosecute and persecute. What does it all mean?

Well, stay tuned intrepid reader. Let me know in the comments what you think of it all. In the next post, I’ll be investigating what the law actually says, and I’ll do some digging into whether there are other folks (whether President, Congressmen, or Cabinet officials) who have done similar things, and what were the consequences (if any) for these people? At this point, I am pretty sure from what I am reading that at least Trump is the first President to be investigated under this charge. Come back Wednesday night for more Tired Blogging!

I wonder how Trump feels, being lumped in the same category as so many left-wingers? Well, in Hell he’ll be in good company. If only Rudi Juliani had sung this, maybe he would not have been kicked off The Masked Singer. Or, at least, I’d have had more respect for him.