Yet the issue is less serious than:
- Eisenhower’s reckless nuclear policies and his SIOP
- Kennedy’s organized crime connections
- Johnson’s secrets and lies about the Vietnam War
- Nixon’s paranoia and dirty tricks
- Clinton’s “wag the dog” war in Kosovo that violated the War Powers Resolution
- Bush Jr.’s casus belli for invading Iraq and domestic surveillance
- Obama’s domestic surveillance and targeted killings of U.S. citizens
With respect to the desire by Bannon and others in Trump’s circle to “destroy the current establishment”, I have conflicted emotions.
On the one hand, I never took Trump as a serious candidate until it was too late and one must ask who the swamp can be filled with once it is drained? Draining the swamp did not work in Germany, Japan or Italy in 1945, or the Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s, precisely because there were not enough competent civil servants to replace those deemed politically incorrect. I would have counseled incremental changes, but I was not on Trump's campaign.
But on the other, the reaction to Trump’s candidacy and presidency by elements of the intelligence and foreign policy communities – the pro-intervention crowd that truly deserved to be in the wilderness for a couple of decades after Iraq – indicates to me that the most important bureaucracies in the U.S. government are no longer accountable to the American electorate, and will subvert democracy in order to pursue their policy goals.
I couldn’t care less about “80%” of the Dossier. I care about the only new material revelation: the sex tape. At present, we are dealing with medieval village gossip intended to comfort members of the #notmypresident, #theresistance, #shepersisted, etc. crowds.
I am sure that it is, but unfortunately for Ms. Winner, the election hacking issue was put to bed months ago:
- Voting machines are not connected to the internet
- Central tabulating machines operate on the results of individual election machines, with each machine verifying the other
- Every single voting machine would have to be hacked by human agents
- Most states have paper trails for their voting machines, including FL, WI, MI, most of PA and OH. These would need to be physically altered as well
- Every election since 2000 would come into question if the 2016 one was rigged, including that of Obama, who was softer on Russia than either McCain or Romney
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