Attack of the Radioactive Mutant Squirrels *Not* from Outer Space
Two of the biggest scandals in modern history are being used to distract from one another, and no one should be amused. (But we try anyway.)
I have had this wonderful picture on my bedroom wall for the last twenty years of this soaking wet cat with the caption “If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry, and if I don’t do either, watch out.”
I’m having that feeling a lot about the whole dynamic surrounding the Epstein files versus the Russiagate “revelations.” I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, and now I’m in “watch out” mode.
I’m putting “revelations” in quotes because let’s be brutally honest, you and I, we all strongly suspected the truth about both, to the point that we acted as if we knew because the sun had a better chance of rising in the west than we had of being wrong. We were well past reasonable doubt.
And we figured it out the way we figure everything out: simply by asking, “What’s not right with this picture? And what is the simplest explanation for what’s not right?”
Sadly, I suspect that’s how people in any county with tightly controlled information systems (*cough* Soviet Russia *cough* China *cough*) figure out what the truth actually is. Funny how we all end up here, though I suppose the term would be less “funny” than “sadly predictable” once you begin to understand human dynamics.
In the case of Epstein, we suspected long ago that he got off lightly because he’s highly connected and there’s very little that can make both heads of the uniparty hydra run for cover (kind of a funny image if one chooses the closet and the other chooses under the bed and we have this huge body in the middle of the room, ass end up, not fooling anyone). The fact that Epstein, on behalf of whoever, was running a honeypot scheme would do it. Dirt on everyone means no one touches you. The fact that that dirt still exists is why no one really wants to touch Epstein with a ten foot pole. And it’s also why the Epstein materials have become a circular firing squad.
As for Russiagate: The Origin Story, we all knew Obama was not a figurehead. Unlike Kamala and Biden, he very much likes to be in control even if he’s working for someone else. He’s middle management with attitude. So to discover that he demanded a highly edited version of the intelligent assessment about Russia’s actions and intentions in 2016 that completely spun the truth is not really a shock.
Although Epstein implicates both sides, it was the people around Trump (if not specifically Trump himself) that promised transparency, so the fact that no transparency is coming is a black eye for Trump and the Republican Party.
The Obama scandal of course just implicates the Democrats and their lackeys in the media and the intelligence apparatus.
One is a pachyderm scandal and one is a donkey scandal, and so we all can guess what’s happened.
For example, take this CNN homepage from the day or so after Tulsi Gabbard made her big announcement.
At the top, you have CNN pushing the “Epstein” story, although their angle is a bit more personal.
They’re honestly walking a very fine line here, trying to smear Trump’s character by indicating he at the least knew about or at worst partook of Epstein’s services. It’s the issue Democrats have been dying to get their hands on, but they might want to handle it carefully. Democrats have a few Epstein skeletons in their own closet.
But Democrats are desperate, so they’ll make it up as they go along.
Meanwhile, CNN wants you to know that Tulsi Gabbard is completely misrepresenting the files that she made public.
The newly unsealed documents do nothing to undercut the government’s core findings in its 2017 assessment that Russia launched an influence and hacking campaign and sought to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton, the sources said.
The new allegations from Gabbard lean on assessments before the election and statements from Obama-era intelligence officials finding that the Russians did not alter the election results through cyber-attacks aimed at infiltrating voting systems.
But the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment never concluded that Russian cyberattacks altered the outcome of the 2016 election or compromised any election infrastructure in the first place, though state voting systems were probed.
Instead, the assessment focused on Russia’s influence campaign ordered by President Vladimir Putin and cyber operations against US and Democratic Party officials, including the hacked emails released by WikiLeaks.
“These are two different things — cyberattacks on infrastructure and hacking the DNC — which they’re conflating in an attempt to make a political point,” said a former senior congressional source familiar with the Senate review. “It’s just wildly misleading on its face.”
In 2020, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee review agreed with the intelligence community’s conclusions on Russia’s election interference and Putin’s role directing the effort.
But this is a misrepresentation itself, as Matt Taibbi explains to Megyn Kelly.
So she pretty much revealed what we all suspected. Obama is a gigantic piece of 💩and, all his saintliness aside, nothing more than a political hack out to keep the Elephant and Ass Show going. Now why he did it? I have no idea. Given Trump 2.0 and the fact that Trump 1.0 couldn’t even find these documents that Gabbard so readily found, “undermining” his presidency doesn’t seem like a plausible explanation. There wasn’t much to undermine. One could hypothesize that they did this simply to save face over Hillary’s attempts to link Trump to Russia and give the Democrats an issue they could hammer away on instead of, well, working. They could just #resist, and it would carry them through the midterms and perhaps even 2020, as it did (sort of, COVID helped).
But that’s just half the coin. The flipside seems just as desperate to do the opposite: play down Epstein and focus everyone on Obama and Russiagate.
Trump himself got in the thick of it with this “Truth Social” post . . .
And what was Trump so desperate for you to see on Mark Levin?
Did you hear? He’s had it! No more Epstein! The Great Levin has spoken, and so it shall be.
Not really. Just kind of makes me want to focus on it more. But I’m funny that way.
But what should we be talking about, Mark?
Ah, yes, predictable as the sunrise.
Don’t look at Epstein! Look at Obama!
Never mind that Richard Grenell and John Ratcliffe were both DNI director under Trump and neither one of them found these documents, which seems awfully suspicious as we were in the throes of Russiagate hysteria.
But whatever. Just one more plot hole they’ll address in re-shoots I guess.
Trump and everyone around him seem in a near panic trying to get people to forget that they promised transparency about a lot of things, but in particular Epstein.
Vance has a point, but none of the other administrations promised this level of transparency about Epstein or rode the Epstein wave, so . . . this just looks like deflection, and we’ve all become nothing if not experts on deflection, here at the Elephant and Ass Show.
The problem is that both of these are issues that someone needs to get to the bottom of, not because of “justice” or some thirty-second-soundbite concept like that. We need to get to the bottom of them because they stem from the same sense of entitlement in our erstwhile ruling class. They stem from the same view that the average American is not worthy of knowing the “truth,” or can’t be trusted with the truth, because we’re just livestock to be herded from one pasture to another and back again. Just flash a little grain at us, and we’ll follow you anywhere. Our ruling class—Obama, Biden, Trump, and all their ilk—are entitled to exploit us as long as they make sure we’re fed and moderately well taken care of.
And while the Obama-Russiagate thing is serious, nothing will come of it. Why? Well, after several years of congressional hearings and a bunch of DOJ referrals and a lot of pixels spilled, even among those working in good faith like Taibbi, and maybe a few low level sacrificial pawns being put through trials in DC and then being let go because their golfing buddies were on the jury . . . after all that Obama will walk away, for two reasons: (1) presidential immunity and (2) that’s just how it works.
And at the end of all that, somewhere alone in the wilderness, a tiny voice will cry out very softly, “What about that Epstein’s clients? Who bought his dirt?” Only to have the entire Republican apparatus turn as one and ask “Who?” And if the voice persists, “Why would you care about an old story like that? We’ve got a country to save in 2028 from the Democrats? Didn’t you just see Obummer walk away from treason!?! Send your money to the RNC now!”
And in fact, there is a bigger problem than Obama spearheading an effort to alter intelligence to make it look like Russia was supporting Trump or that Trump was working for Russia. There is actually a bigger problem than Epstein likely making his money selling underage girls’ “services” to wealthy and powerful people and then blackmailing them or selling others the information so they in turn could blackmail them.
The really big problem is that we have a system in which this is all possible. We have no reliable check on the intelligence apparatus. We have no surefire way, as citizens, to get transparency. We have no way to make our leadership accountable (in point of fact, it is not considered treason to misuse government institutions to sway the public and get your way—it’s actually just business as usual). And, most sadly, there seems to be no desire to do any of the above if doing so will bring the ethics and actions of “our side” into uncomfortable question. And once one or the other side is in power, they magically lose the desire to reform any of it, and their supporters magically stop asking, and if you do ask, you’re accused of “disloyalty” or some such poppycock as that. (When honestly was the last time you heard anything about doing away with Section 230 protections or making the large social media companies common carriers or a law against debanking? For god’s sake, we couldn’t even get rid of the FISA court after it had been misused to spy on Trump, with Mike Johnson leading the charge to preserve it. And when was the last time you actually heard someone remind you that those are actual issues we were all really worked up about once upon not too distant a time?)
So forgive me if I don’t get too excited about the whole “Obama lied” thing. Of course he did. He could. The system allowed it. In fact, that may be the system’s reason for existing. Trump and those who support him are unwilling to change the system, because the same system allows them to do all manner of variations on the theme. And when the next elections roll around, there will be much banging of the chest and promising of change, and then *poof* nothing. Be happy with whatever crumbs we throw you and don’t worry your pretty little bovine heads—hey, look over there, a glowing squirrel, no, not that glowing squirrel, the other one, damn it.
Look. At. The. Other. Glowing. Squirrel.
And here I am, not laughing, and not crying.
Just watching out . . . for where I can get a rock-bottom deal on bulk nuts.
Hey, one can have a worse pet than a radioactive mutant squirrel.
Would keep the solar panel salesmen away.
We had the most wonderful thunderstorm last night, just as the other half and I went to bed: cooled everything down, rained quite a bit, rumbled nicely, no chunks of hail (always a good bit of luck in Montana).
How’s summer going where you are?
"He’s middle management with attitude."
Harsh but 💯% Truth.
He's not nearly Power Player he thinks he is, and never was.
Lenin referred to such actors as Useful Idiots.
And that's why it all smells like Communism.
Just because the Dems are yelling about Epstein doesn’t make it a liability for the Reps. There could be a Trump trap in there somewhere, and the current Dem leadership is stupid and inept enough to fall into any hole in the ground, even without the palm fronds to disguise it. They might even know this and be hoping to unseat their own people. As with all things DC, you have to wait until you get home to figure out what the play was all about. And home this time might mean the midterm elections.