Yes Professor Brownstein you are correct; “the larger context here is the Rule of Law. Today, the stock of our seed corn of respect for the Rule of Law is all but eaten. With the rule of law crumbling over the past decades, the government has increasingly wielded coercive power.”
Do you remember that time in 2016 when Attorney General Loretta Lynch decided she would take a private meeting with Bill Clinton on her plane as it was parked on the tarmac in Phoenix – while Bill’s wife, Hillary Clinton (when she was Obama’s Secretary of State), was under federal investigation for using a secret and unlawful private email server at her New York home, to receive thousands of top secret and classified government emails?
It is my humble opinion that our Constitutional Republic permanently fell during the 2016 presidential election cycle on July 5 when FBI Director James Comey ignored the rule of law and “exonerated” Hillary Clinton for the illegal server and the thousands of her classified emails. At that point in American history, the “rule of law” in the USA began its demise and because the constitutional provisions for remedy to the ensuing felonious acts and omissions (think FISA Court - “Crossfire Hurricane”) of James Comey, (et al) were never pursued; our Constitutional Republic has fallen and is irreparable…... and the 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago along with the four unconstitutional indictments of Donald J. Trump and the "Alvin Bragg show trial" is my proof We the People now live in a banana republic.
Please be cognizant: The Comey/Hillary Clinton exoneration was three weeks prior to a July 2016 Oval Office meeting orchestrated by President Barack Hussein Obama and Valerie Jarrett and attended by Vice President Joe Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, national security adviser Susan Rice and CIA Director John Brennan.
According to CIA Director John Brennan’s handwritten notes, Brennan informed attendees of “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” In other words, a scandal about collusion with Russia. According to a CIA memo, the intent of this plan was “distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”
Later it was shown that the plan was enacted via the Steele dossier, which Robby Mook, Clinton’s former campaign director, acknowledged under oath in 2022 to have procured. So explosive were Brennan’s notes that U.S. senators needed a federal court order, issued four years after Obama’s Oval Office meeting, to wrest a copy of it from the Department of Justice. Released along with Brennan’s notes was a copy of a CIA memo sent to FBI Director James Comey and Peter Strzok, (the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and manager of FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane”), delineating the Barack Hussein Obama’s Oval Office meeting’s discussion.
Therefore as We the People encounter the 2024 election cycle, it is wise to conduct yourselves as living is a “Post-Constitutional Republic”. I compare it to the time of Jesus Christ living in Roman occupied Jerusalem.
Partisanship breeds an anti-ethic which begins and ends with: "If I want it, than its fine for me to support or execute any tactics to get it."
When we behave as partisans, we avoid having to face this bald reality by flocking with other partisans and letting the fact that we are not alone, stand in for any kind of rigorous examination, and as proof of the righteousness of this anti-ethic.
And this anti-ethic breeds partisanship. A terrible chicken and a worse egg.
Excellent post, as always. I agree on the Trump verdict, and agree that the Rule of Law has been tarnished. The verdict also proves that no one is immune to prosecutorial excess, including those that are crowing over the “decision.” As someone who has worked on municipal bailouts, I should point out that your example of shareholders demanding their returns has already happened, with the blessing of the Obama WH. GM and Chrysler debt and equity holders’ lien status was flipped. Corporate debt holders, normally holding a priority lien, were left at the back of the line. It turned out the UAW owned too much equity in the companies. Did the rating agencies reflect this failure to pay debt holders by assigning a D rating to the companies’ debt? They did not. Not two years later, GM was raising funds in the public market.
The crux of this issue and all others is in your last sentence - although the rest of the post was very good.
"To undo our mistakes, we first must be aware of the error-filled road we are traveling. You can’t undo what you are not willing to see.".
this it would seem has always been the failing of the splintered masses. No matte the issues the tyrants, rulers, despots or radical opportunist ply them with - they never see it or more importantly, aren't moved to action, until it's too late. That point usually is starvation, impoverishment, loss of all worked for gains in some cases overnight and the action more times than not is violent revolt.
I'm not wholly opposed to that eventuality, as I do believe, in light of all the aftermath warnings, that if you leave those psychopathic tyrants, oppressors, murderers alive, they will either rise again and cause destruction (much like fauci) or they will be the seeds for the next generation of progeny.
However, the smarter option is constant and intentional maintenance and governance by the citizenry, which brings us back to that last sentence and the history of societies, where apathy, laziness and coveted distraction, more times than not, rule the day.
It's a shame that even after 4 years of millions being killed, literally at the hands of government bureaucracies (DOD,NIH, FDA, CDC, FBI, CIA) and corporations (healthcare, media, pharma) there is relative silence, for the perpetrators to pay for their crimes. While many will make hay out of Fauci appearing before congress, the reverse of lawfare is at play, for anyone willing to see it.
You would know better than I, but in all my reading, I've never come across a society that has fallen as far as ours has (moral, government and spiritual) and was able to climbed out of those depths without a violent reset.
Why is "not voting for Trump" a virtue signal? It is the opposite. You are willing to see the country be taken by Communists because, what exactly? Because, Trump is the only person standing between the Left completely destroying the US. And this won't end with Trump. Once the system has imprisoned him, they will have no compunction in doing the same to anyone else who threatens the system.
How can any sane person be offended by Trump but not by the ethics (or lack thereof) of Bill, Hillary, Obama and Biden. These folks, and plenty others like them, came into politics as pretty much middle class without much in the way of assets. All are now multi-millionaires. Hm. Wonder how that happened?
Trump isn't the sort of guy I would want to hang out with and he certainly has his flaws. But at least he loves America and isn't going to do what Hillary and Old Joe did and sell influence to foreign countries, some of whom are our mortal enemies.
You and others like you disgust me. We are losing our country to a bunch of Marxist radicals who encourage little children to question their identity and have life changing surgeries. Not to mention their war on women with the whole trans BS. The Left HATES the US and the West. They wish to destroy it. They are transforming America by bringing in tens of millions of folks who don't share our values. They are punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty.
In our political system we are given a binary choice for President. R's or D's. And while I very much doubt that God is on either team, I can guarandamntee you which side Satan is on.
We are teetering, perhaps beyond saving, on a precipice of total destruction. Right now, our only hope is DJT. He may not be enough and he certainly isn't who I would choose, but he is all we have.
Mark, I don't mind that I disgust you. It was a virtue signal for the person I was speaking to. There is no sense in picking a needless fight that changes no one.
I have a long public record of opposing much of what you oppose and I have been writing about the pernicious influence of Marxist radicals in essays too many to mention.
Can you not see that our house, the house of the West and all its values, is ON FIRE!!! And Trump is the only national figure willing to bring his fire truck and help us put out the fire. Most of the other R's are simply standing outside the house hoping to scavenge from the remains.
I was with you 💯.. until recently… his willingness to keep up the LIE about the Covid vaccines being safe & effective is mind blowing 🤯🤯🤯. If you lie that bad about one thing, 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️ .. and I am MAGA
Yes Professor Brownstein you are correct; “the larger context here is the Rule of Law. Today, the stock of our seed corn of respect for the Rule of Law is all but eaten. With the rule of law crumbling over the past decades, the government has increasingly wielded coercive power.”
Do you remember that time in 2016 when Attorney General Loretta Lynch decided she would take a private meeting with Bill Clinton on her plane as it was parked on the tarmac in Phoenix – while Bill’s wife, Hillary Clinton (when she was Obama’s Secretary of State), was under federal investigation for using a secret and unlawful private email server at her New York home, to receive thousands of top secret and classified government emails?
It is my humble opinion that our Constitutional Republic permanently fell during the 2016 presidential election cycle on July 5 when FBI Director James Comey ignored the rule of law and “exonerated” Hillary Clinton for the illegal server and the thousands of her classified emails. At that point in American history, the “rule of law” in the USA began its demise and because the constitutional provisions for remedy to the ensuing felonious acts and omissions (think FISA Court - “Crossfire Hurricane”) of James Comey, (et al) were never pursued; our Constitutional Republic has fallen and is irreparable…... and the 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago along with the four unconstitutional indictments of Donald J. Trump and the "Alvin Bragg show trial" is my proof We the People now live in a banana republic.
Please be cognizant: The Comey/Hillary Clinton exoneration was three weeks prior to a July 2016 Oval Office meeting orchestrated by President Barack Hussein Obama and Valerie Jarrett and attended by Vice President Joe Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, national security adviser Susan Rice and CIA Director John Brennan.
According to CIA Director John Brennan’s handwritten notes, Brennan informed attendees of “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” In other words, a scandal about collusion with Russia. According to a CIA memo, the intent of this plan was “distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”
Later it was shown that the plan was enacted via the Steele dossier, which Robby Mook, Clinton’s former campaign director, acknowledged under oath in 2022 to have procured. So explosive were Brennan’s notes that U.S. senators needed a federal court order, issued four years after Obama’s Oval Office meeting, to wrest a copy of it from the Department of Justice. Released along with Brennan’s notes was a copy of a CIA memo sent to FBI Director James Comey and Peter Strzok, (the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and manager of FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane”), delineating the Barack Hussein Obama’s Oval Office meeting’s discussion.
Therefore as We the People encounter the 2024 election cycle, it is wise to conduct yourselves as living is a “Post-Constitutional Republic”. I compare it to the time of Jesus Christ living in Roman occupied Jerusalem.
Carl, I do remember.
I still believe we can prevent the worst but it will take more of us doing our part.
I know you are doing yours. Thank you.
Partisanship breeds an anti-ethic which begins and ends with: "If I want it, than its fine for me to support or execute any tactics to get it."
When we behave as partisans, we avoid having to face this bald reality by flocking with other partisans and letting the fact that we are not alone, stand in for any kind of rigorous examination, and as proof of the righteousness of this anti-ethic.
And this anti-ethic breeds partisanship. A terrible chicken and a worse egg.
Thank you, Jen. Your chilling summary reveals and instructs us!
Sorry to chill! Also: It’s a beautiful fresh morning in which any of us might have any number of beautiful experiences!
Hear, hear!
I big flying pink bird 🐦 flew overhead on my walk today 😀
Excellent post, as always. I agree on the Trump verdict, and agree that the Rule of Law has been tarnished. The verdict also proves that no one is immune to prosecutorial excess, including those that are crowing over the “decision.” As someone who has worked on municipal bailouts, I should point out that your example of shareholders demanding their returns has already happened, with the blessing of the Obama WH. GM and Chrysler debt and equity holders’ lien status was flipped. Corporate debt holders, normally holding a priority lien, were left at the back of the line. It turned out the UAW owned too much equity in the companies. Did the rating agencies reflect this failure to pay debt holders by assigning a D rating to the companies’ debt? They did not. Not two years later, GM was raising funds in the public market.
Thanks for the kind words and alarming example, Carol.
The crux of this issue and all others is in your last sentence - although the rest of the post was very good.
"To undo our mistakes, we first must be aware of the error-filled road we are traveling. You can’t undo what you are not willing to see.".
this it would seem has always been the failing of the splintered masses. No matte the issues the tyrants, rulers, despots or radical opportunist ply them with - they never see it or more importantly, aren't moved to action, until it's too late. That point usually is starvation, impoverishment, loss of all worked for gains in some cases overnight and the action more times than not is violent revolt.
I'm not wholly opposed to that eventuality, as I do believe, in light of all the aftermath warnings, that if you leave those psychopathic tyrants, oppressors, murderers alive, they will either rise again and cause destruction (much like fauci) or they will be the seeds for the next generation of progeny.
However, the smarter option is constant and intentional maintenance and governance by the citizenry, which brings us back to that last sentence and the history of societies, where apathy, laziness and coveted distraction, more times than not, rule the day.
It's a shame that even after 4 years of millions being killed, literally at the hands of government bureaucracies (DOD,NIH, FDA, CDC, FBI, CIA) and corporations (healthcare, media, pharma) there is relative silence, for the perpetrators to pay for their crimes. While many will make hay out of Fauci appearing before congress, the reverse of lawfare is at play, for anyone willing to see it.
You would know better than I, but in all my reading, I've never come across a society that has fallen as far as ours has (moral, government and spiritual) and was able to climbed out of those depths without a violent reset.
🙏😢 unfortunately I agree with every word you wrote
It's unfortunate people never look back and apply those hard lessons to themselves and their time. It would save much time, energy and pain.
Keep writing though, the more people that wake up, the better the chances of rebuilding a moral populous down the road.
Muddle through … we are already here & I would bet the elections will be canceled due to WAR
Why is "not voting for Trump" a virtue signal? It is the opposite. You are willing to see the country be taken by Communists because, what exactly? Because, Trump is the only person standing between the Left completely destroying the US. And this won't end with Trump. Once the system has imprisoned him, they will have no compunction in doing the same to anyone else who threatens the system.
How can any sane person be offended by Trump but not by the ethics (or lack thereof) of Bill, Hillary, Obama and Biden. These folks, and plenty others like them, came into politics as pretty much middle class without much in the way of assets. All are now multi-millionaires. Hm. Wonder how that happened?
Trump isn't the sort of guy I would want to hang out with and he certainly has his flaws. But at least he loves America and isn't going to do what Hillary and Old Joe did and sell influence to foreign countries, some of whom are our mortal enemies.
You and others like you disgust me. We are losing our country to a bunch of Marxist radicals who encourage little children to question their identity and have life changing surgeries. Not to mention their war on women with the whole trans BS. The Left HATES the US and the West. They wish to destroy it. They are transforming America by bringing in tens of millions of folks who don't share our values. They are punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty.
In our political system we are given a binary choice for President. R's or D's. And while I very much doubt that God is on either team, I can guarandamntee you which side Satan is on.
We are teetering, perhaps beyond saving, on a precipice of total destruction. Right now, our only hope is DJT. He may not be enough and he certainly isn't who I would choose, but he is all we have.
Mark, I don't mind that I disgust you. It was a virtue signal for the person I was speaking to. There is no sense in picking a needless fight that changes no one.
I have a long public record of opposing much of what you oppose and I have been writing about the pernicious influence of Marxist radicals in essays too many to mention.
Can you not see that our house, the house of the West and all its values, is ON FIRE!!! And Trump is the only national figure willing to bring his fire truck and help us put out the fire. Most of the other R's are simply standing outside the house hoping to scavenge from the remains.
Mark, I have written too many essays to list that argue that Western Civilization is in grave danger.
Essays won't save WC. Men with courage will. Trump has courage.
I was with you 💯.. until recently… his willingness to keep up the LIE about the Covid vaccines being safe & effective is mind blowing 🤯🤯🤯. If you lie that bad about one thing, 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️ .. and I am MAGA
I completely agree with you about the vaxx and Trump not being capabable of admiting fault. But he is all we have right now.
Don’t forget to add the Bush Family to your list .. this ALL started with 9/11 and the Patriot Act & who was that .. the Republicans