Section One: Very Bad vs Cataclysmic: Come Back With Me to That Day

So Comey had testified on May 3, 2017-that you should come back with him to that day and tell him what you would do:

FBI Director James Comey told Congress Wednesday that revealing the reopening of the Hillary Clinton email probe just before Election Day came down to a painful, complicated choice between “really bad” and “catastrophic” options. He said he’d felt “mildly nauseous” to think he might have tipped the election outcome but in hindsight would change nothing.

“I would make the same decision,” Comey declared during a lengthy hearing in which Democratic senators grilled him on the seeming inconsistency between the Clinton disclosure 11 days before the election and his silence about the bureau’s investigation into possible contacts between Russia and Trump’s campaign.

‘Really bad’ or ‘catastrophic’: Comey defends Clinton choice | AP News

Comey’s attitude on the Comey Letter is similar to the Daniel Jones Derangement Syndrome people: for six years they scapegoated Jones and insisted that he sucked and no it wasn’t worth getting him an OL or receivers as it would make no difference and now that he has OL and receivers they’re like “if only he’d play so well the last six years”-without the slightest irony. This is how Comey talks about the Comey Letter. OR how Russia hacks like Hasanabi cum John Mearsheimer cum Bad Empanada-they insist that their insistence Russia would never invade was the intelligent prediction even though it proved dead wrong-Mearsheimer literally was writing another “Russia will never invade” screed in foreign Policy when a friend came to him and showed him the headline on February 22 2022.

Bad Empanada actually claimed vindication when contrary to his prediction Russia did invade Ukraine. Right being wrong only makes you righter. Again this is Comey’s logic too.

As we’d discussed in Chapter Comey Still Hasn’t Apologized as Schoenberg says:  Comey’s  Letter was the biggest mistake in the history of mistakes.

“The other reason that I focus on Comey’s mistake is that he has yet to admit he made a mistake.”

Comey, Comey, and more Comey! | Schoenblog.com

Exactly-as I’d argued in this previous chapter Comey has been angling for redemption without repentance-he wants to be forgiven for the Comey Letter without admitting that he did anything wrong. I’m no Buddhist-not that there’s anything wrong with it!-but you could argue this is a story about Karma-the more Comey defends his indefensible Emaiglate conduct the worse things have gotten for him.

James Comey Still Won’t Apologize but He did Write a Pretty Good Book Final Draft – But Her Emails: Why all Roads Still Lead to Russia

Back to Schoenblog:

In fact, he continues to claim that if he had it to do all over again, he would make the same decision.  “I am convinced that if I could do it all again, I would do the same thing, given my role and what I knew at the time.” (Page 207.) Many people have focused on the ridiculous “Speak or Conceal” dichotomy that Comey has set up in his mind to explain away his error.  He seems simply incapable of applying the actual facts as they developed to help him see that a different, and very justifiable, decision would have been preferable.  The most he offers is this:

Another person might have decided to wait to see what the investigators could see once they got a search warrant for the Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer. That’s a tricky one, because the Midyear team [the FBI team working on the e-mails] was saying there was no way to complete the review before the election, but I could imagine another director deciding to gamble a bit by investigating secretly in the week before the election. That, of course, walks into Loretta Lynch’s point after our awkward hug. Had I not said something, what was the prospect of a leak during that week? Pretty high. Although the Midyear team had proven itself leakproof through a year of investigation, people in the criminal investigation section of the FBI in New York knew something was going on that touched Hillary Clinton, and a search warrant was a big step. The circle was now larger than it had ever been, and included New York, where we’d had Clinton-related leaks in prior months. Concealing the new investigation and then having it leak right before the election might have been even worse, if worse can be imagined. But a reasonable person might have done it.

“Obviously, Comey is simply incapable of imagining the world as it would have been had he made a different choice.  What could he possibly mean by “might have been even worse”?  Worse than what actually transpired?  Worse than his firing by President Trump?  What exactly is he imagining that would be worse?  Really, what is it?”

CODA: Comey has it exactly backwards that it would have been a gamble to get a warrant and search the emails before speaking out that’s actually what due process is-what Comey did was further sully Clinton’s reputation before even knowing what was in the emails so sure another Director might have done it differently’-they might have followed DOJ policy and basic due process.

Really what is it? This remains the $64 million dollar question how can what has happened since the former FBI Director cum life long Republican elected Trump merely be “very bad?” What could catastrophic be if not the last ten years of US history post Comey’s duboiusly predicated Emailgate investigation-as we saw in Chapter Probable Cause it’s questionable if it should have ever been opened in the first place?

And Schoenblog wrote this in 2018-when so many terrible things that Trump has since done hadn’t happened yet. Like when he tried to extort Zelensky the day after Mueller testified-after the Democrats had diffidently let Russiagate die only to see the GOP respond by weaponizing it via their parallel universe narrative which stood the facts on their head.

Before hundreds of thousands of Americans died due to Trump’s Covid mismanagement. Before his roiling coup in 2020 which become the J6 insurrection. Before Trump stole all those sensitive and classified documents as he finally walked out the door after J6 in late January 2021.

Schoeblog wrote this before Dobbs thanks to which now a 13 year old rape victim has less rights than her rapist in Red State America.

CODA: To be sure Comey was a lifelong Republlican before he elected Trump. So maybe he’s forced birther “pro life” and reads stories like where a woman in a coma is forced to be kept alive for 8 months so she can complete her pregnancy or a woman in Texas isn’t allowed to have an abortion even after the fetus DIED.

This was before the Roberts Court set aside the 14 Amendment which makes clear that anyone who engages in political insurrection can not run for office again or when the Republican Supreme Court declared Trump to possess Absolute Immunity. It was long before Trump had Elon Musk illegally destroy USAID as the US broke it’s promises to so many who had counted on us around the world and caused such death and suffering.

Nearly 15,000 will have died already because of Trump and Musk’s cuts to USAID, advocacy program claims | The Independent

This was of course long before Comey’s daughter was fired from SDNY for no reason other than being Comey’s daughter and sharing his last name. But-remember-this doesn’t happen if only he had followed DOJ policy rather than dismissing it as lacking in moral grandeur and thinking he had the right to rewrite the rules in line with his Kantian ad hock moral intuitions.

Section: Very Bad or Catastrophic? Comey is Comeyed.

And this was before the latest where Trump finally did what he’s wanted to do for eight years-ever since Comey didn’t give him what he wanted in terms of shutting down the Russia investigation. CNN’s framing of it here is apropos:

Get ready for a 2016 redux.

The indictment of former FBI Director James Comey made public on Thursday is likely to put on display, yet again, the blockbuster political discourse around the FBI investigations in 2016 that affected the presidential election.

Central to the case: Leaks to media outlets that Comey was asked about in 2017 and 2020 congressional testimony.

Comey, the long-time nemesis of Donald Trump from the early days of Trump’s first term, has been criminally charged with two felonies, both related to a lie he allegedly told Congress in 2020.”

Yes it is a 2016 redux as none of this happens if not for the Comey Letter.

CODA: Even Comey  admitted this in his May 3 testimony-when he said he was “slightly nauseated”-are you more than slightly  nauseated yet? It’s likely that Comey’s revelation that he was slightly nauseated at the fact that he elected Trump was likely the final straw for why Trump fired him then-he would have been fired at some point but it’s why it happened then.

Why was James Comey indicted, what are the charges and what happens next in the case | CNN Politics

Indeed it doesn’t pass the laugh test but Trump’s Deputy AG had claimed that the reason Comey was fired was for-the Comey Letter ie for electing Trump. But again it always goes back Emailgate Circa 2016 that is Comey’s Original Sin. As he has repeatedly refused repentance his Karmic bill just keeps getting larger and larger.

This was underscored even in his Instagram response to his blatantly politically motivated indictment-Bill Barr revealed in his book that Trump had been agitating every day at the end during the post election coup period.

Former FBI Director James Comey responded Thursday after the Department of Justice indicted him on two of three counts.

Prosecutors indicted Comey with making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation. Comey posted a video on Instagram to respond to the indictment and framed it as political retribution.

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either. Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she’s right,” Comey said.

Comey said that neither he nor his supporters should give in to intimidation.

“I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith,” Comey said.

‘Let’s Have A Trial’: Comey Responds To Indictment

I kind of like his response in some ways. At least he’s punching back. While-predictably-Trump’s co-conspirators are criticizing him for clapping back-we remember how much “restraint” Trump showed when he was on trial-I like it. Most who Trump has bullied have tended to keep their heads down hoping if they don’t fight back maybe they’ll get through it but this misunderstands bullies-we’ve seen how the more the big media outlets and law firms have capitulated the more unreasonable demands he’s added.

I appreciate ““I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does.” Hopefully some will be galvanized and take a more muscular posture vs a vs Trump’s ever more egregious authoritarianism.

Still when he says that ““My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way” I can’t help reflect that you certainly can imagining them living another way-if he simply hadn’t done the Comey Letter. Again it always goes back to his But Her Email’s debacle his indefensible letter.

While his family notably his daughter, Maureen Comey, have courageously stood up to Trump the fact is it wasn’t their choice-indeed as we saw in Chapter Nunes Comey’s wife had urged him not to do the letter and she was right morally, legally, and politically. According to Marcy Wheeler, Maureen Comey may eventually win her lawsuit against the DOJ’s blatantly politically motivated firing but it may take years.  It was Comey’s unilateral not to say disastrous decision and now his family even more the country continues to suffer the consequences.

Section: Comey Justice vs Trumpian Justice: There are Two Kinds of Trials

I also have some mixed feelings on the end of his video where he proclaims his trust for the federal justice system-after all he argues, he’s innocent. The case against him doesn’t appear strong to say the least. Emptywheel thinks he’ll win pretty easily. I hope so-as much as I despise Comey or at least his legacy, as a liberal who believes in the rule of law I don’t want to see him convicted in Trump’s politically motivated junta.

Emptywheel Fridays on The Nicole Sandler Show 9-26-25

Will Ted Cruz Go to Prison for the Lies He Told as Part of the Jim Comey Indictment? – emptywheel

As much damage as he’s done to this country I don’t want to see him baselessly prosecuted.  Apparently no one thinks Trump has a case-the only person he could find to prosecute this baseless case was Lindsey Halligan who’s not even a prosecutor but an insurance lawyer.

So Comey should be fine. Unlike the country. Indeed the fact that Halligan may not even have standing may be yet another way this case could potentially be undermined. He should be fine presuming it’s the right kind of case

Section: There are Two Kinds of Criminal Cases: Those Where the Truth Matters and Those Where it Doesn’t

Every day in America there are cases where the truth doesn’t matter because the accused lacks the financial and social resources to fight back. Many people of small to any means end up railroaded into prison terms simply because they couldn’t afford decent counsel. Comey is obviously not in that camp. Even as 60% of Americans struggle living paycheck to paycheck, Bill E. Buckner Comey is doing very well despite all the damage he has done.

Still even those with considerable financial means and social standing can be put through the mill if the prosecution is political as has often been the case during Trump 2.0 Absolute Immunity Edition. The case against Hunter Biden was also entirely politically motivated but he still almost ended up doing hard time in prison if not for his father’s late in the game pardon-a pardon I should say was not just defensible but I’d argue the right choice; I don’t understand the argument it would have been better for Hunter to go to prison on baseless trumped up charges-David Weiss himself had admitted privately if his last name wasn’t Biden that case never would have gone that far-he’d possessed the unlicensed weapon just a short period of time and he’d paid what he owed in taxes.

Indeed during Trump 2.0 it’s been clear that often all he needs is to find the right jurisdiction in front of the right judge-a Trump judge of which there are many. So hopefully Emptywheel is right-IF the case is based on the actual truth then Comey will be fine. But could Trump get it in the right jurisdiction? Hopefully not but it’s not like something like this hasn’t happened before. It’s also important to never lose sight of the fact that the most powerful judge in the country is to a large extent a Trump judge-John “Trump has Absolute Immunity” Roberts.

Supreme Court gives Trump a wave of victories in final week : NPR

Like when Little Marco Rubio declares to Congressman Ted Lieu that  basically it doesn’t matter what the SJC told Trump about Kilmar  Ábrego García because Trump has executive supremacy it’s outrageous in principle but may well be right in practice as John Roberts has basically placed Trump above accountability.

Section: James Comey is Being Comeyed OR Martha Stewarted

Perhaps this won’t happen in Comey’s case and again I certainly hope so. Still from the Karmic standpoint you could argue Comey DESERVES to be railroaded. After all on the substance Comey is not guilty. But then again, neither was Hillary Clinton but this didn’t stop him from opening up Emailgate that had dubious predication then milked it for an entire year then violated HRC”s due process rights in the Presser and finally the Letter leading to her defeat and our plunge into our current roiling Constitutional crisis-the latest of which, ironically if kind of fittingly-Comey’s own indictment. No he doesn’t deserve to be indicted but neither did she. yet he dragged it out so long that by the time he finally acquitted her-while wrongly further dirtying her up-that a supermajority of Americans wrongly believed she should have been indicted. Ironic that Comey had claimed that he took these inappropriate and “very careless” actions to properly inform the public yet his actions led to them being less well informed not more.

Then there’s Martha Stewart-if Comey is completely innocent he is no more than she was yet he sent her to prison anyway.

Section: Then There was That Time Comey Begged for the Chance to Work for Ken Starr

In 1996 he was on the Senate Whitewater Committee.

James Comey – Wikipedia

If you want to see what a political witch hunt looks like see Ken Starr’s Whitewater crusade in the 1990.

Section: Whitewater: We’ve Got your Witch-hunt Right Here

Trump says he’s  the victim of a witch hunt?! While Trump and his GOP co-conspirators made much of Hillary having her lawyer with her during her  final interview with the FBI in June, 2016 Trump never even sat down to speak with the Mueller team claiming they would just “perjury trap” him.

Section: Susan McDougal Goes to Prison for Telling the Truth

As much as Trump lies this was wise but in 1995, McDougal was convicted for REFUSING to lie. The “plea deal” Ken Starr “offered” was “say what we want which is that Clinton is a criminal or we’ll put you in prison. Her husband, James McDougal agreed to lie for Ken Starr and she didn’t so she ended up in prison. Starr did literally the same thing to Monical Lewinsky-locked her in a hotel room for 24 hours while threatening to put her and her mother in prison for 27 years if she didn’t agree to testify against Clinton. He also illegally didn’t let her call her lawyer and literally entrapped her into a perjury trap. Again everything the Republican party says is projection.

CODA: Even getting Ken Starr in as Special Counsel was coerced-the initial SC, Robert Fiske, found no wrongdoing so the Republicans got him replaced by Starr who was still pissed Clinton had won as he’d hoped Bush Sr would appoint him to the Supreme Court.

Fools for Scandal: How The Media Invented Whitewater: Lyons, Gene: 9781879957527: Amazon.com: Books

Of course Clinton made a huge “own goal” though it was much more than just one goal he kicked for Team Republican by not taking Hillary’s advice and reauthorizing the Independent Counsel Act which lead to the empowering of a three judge panel in the DC Court of Appeals that-what a coincidence!-were all ideological conservative Republicans.

So yes if the truth matters in Comey’s case he will win-seeing that he has also has a top lawyer you would think he’ll be good-though I take nothing for granted. A time like this requirres what you might call strategic paranoia. 

Section: Once Again the FBI Has Always Been a Very Republican Place

To this day the FBI has never had a Democratic FBI Director.  Democrats seem to think that by sucking up to GOPland the FBI when they’re in power and appointing Republicans will make them like the Dem President better. After Clinton made the giant mistake of choosing Louis Freeh, Freeh spent the entire 1990s investigating Clinton including demanding that Clinton give a urine test in the middle of a fancy black tie cocktail dinner.

As this book has covered in fairly painstaking detail Comey too used the dubious But Her Emails investigation to defeat the Democratic Presidential candidate. FDR for his part chose J. Edgar Hoover. This is the classic case of you might as well do the right thing or even the politically beneficial thing as you’re going to get abused no matter what you do but somehow the Dems have managed after 117 years of Republican Directors-technically Wray was an independent, he was also Chris Christie’s Bridgegate lawyer who unlike Comey then McCabe refused to provide the Democrats with intel on the Russia investigation-still not gotten the memo.

Comey was a lifelong Republican, as was Mueller, and Andy McCabe.

So once again: Comey Justice vs Trumpian Justice… What is the difference? At the end of the day it turns out not much. Or Comey himself and his Republican friends like Ken Starr and Louis Freeh were practicing Trumpian Justice 20 years before anyone had ever imagined the words “President Trump” other than maybe Trump himself, Roger Stone, and his Russian handlers.

Section: Does Michael “Nostradamus” Cohen Know Something About Comey’s Indictment We Don’t?

Unlike Marcy Wheeler and even folks like Pam Bondi, Alan Dershowitz, and Andy McCarthy, Cohen declares that Comey will be found guilty in his signature rhetorically and emotionally certain way.

Michael Cohen: James Comey will be ‘found guilty’

CF:

Raw and Unfiltered: with @brianKarem

“Comey Is Today’s Ham Sandwich” – Michael Cohen

When Cohen gets so emotionally certain the correct response is to ask yourself is how does he know? What is making him so emotionally  certain?

Section: Did Cohen Have Another Tara Palmieri Moment?

In her interview with Cohen-see the Prologue-Palmieri did exactly this when Cohen insisted with absolute certainty that he didn’t know anything about Katie Johnson. She pushed him and eventually he revealed that he personally sent a private investigator to intimidate Katie Johnson in the late stages of the election. Cohen insisted it wasn’t Johnson but based on a book I discussed in the Epilogue it was almost certainly here.

How does he know why is he so certain Comey will be convicted? First of all though we should give credit where credit is due-Cohen correctly forecast his indictment back in late August. However is this because he’s a great forecaster or did he know something we don’t-like when Giuliani correctly predicted the coming Comey Letter in October 2016-“some pretty big surprises?”

What’s interesting is that Cohen started his spiel here with total epistemological nihilism-‘all these fancy pants pundits with their talk of the “Rule of Law” but they don’t know what the Trump DOJ has none of us do. His nihilism is of the kind that would impress a mob boss and of course for over 10 years he worked for Trump-“I would take a bullet for the President.”

But as is classic with this tactic is he moves from total nihilism-‘I don’t know you don’t know, nobody knows-sounding much like the Warren Report: “A mystery wrapped inside an enigma…” to emotional certainty that Comey will be indicted. Why is this as no one knows anything?

Because this whole intellectual agnostic cum nihilism shtick was just a tactic. In fact Cohen thinks Comey will be convicted or at least seems to hope he will be. Why? Well he then has another Tara Palmieri moment starting at 3:15:

“I WILL TELL YOU FROM MY INVESTIGATION…”

What-he did his own investigation? He then goes onto reveal that he has had 30 year  WH correspondent Brian Karem speaking to people “inside the federal government” ie the Trump DOJ. When he said this I did a double take-who exactly is Brian Karem and what exactly kind of an “investigation” did he do within the federal government?

Cohen claims that in the course of his conversations with people in the DOJ, FBI, etc he was able to conclusively prove that Comey ‘was very much involved in the Russia investigation in a very negative way.’

“CHANCES ARE, THIS DOJ HAS EVERY SINGLE EMAIL, EVERY TEXT MESSAGE, EVERY COMMUNICATION. >> I BELIEVE LIKELY. >> HE WILL. >> BE FOUND GUILTY.

Starting at 3:25

This is where it gets a little tricky. Is Cohen making a positive or a normative point? One perilous aspect of this is often positive arguments are made to sneak in normative arguments. The fact that the Old South depended economically on slave labor is a positive point. But it quite often it can deftly be laundered as a normative one-after all ending slavery will cause terrible economic pain so maybe it’s  the wrong time to end it…

Much of this sounds like his point is normative even while insisting it’s positive.

Like in his Substack on Friday “James Comey is Today’s Ham Sandwich” there’s a lot of truth, alas.

James Comey thinks he’s in control. He’s not.

If my own experience has taught me anything, it’s this: the old adage is true; you can indict a ham sandwich. And today, James Comey is the ham sandwich. He may not like the comparison, but the facts don’t lie. Many will say it’s not right, not fair, not justified. They’ll paint him as a martyr, the straight-shooter, the boy scout. Spare me. Comey has built his entire brand on being the solemn guardian of American integrity, the tall moral compass of righteousness. And now he wants us to believe he isn’t afraid, that he welcomes trial. Please. Those are the last words of a man who doesn’t yet realize the quicksand he’s already sinking in.

On a normative basis I tend to agree, in fact I made the same point-Comey WILL PREVAIL assuming it’s a courtroom and a judge for whom the truth and justice matters. But during the Trump years we’ve seen many episodes where it hasn’t mattered. And the way Cohen structured this:

 Many will say it’s not right, not fair, not justified. They’ll paint him as a martyr, the straight-shooter, the boy scout. Spare me.”

Why “spare me” does he agree it is justified? Or because Comey’s no martyr. Because I agree that Comey  is no martyr -Emptywheel herself says she wishes Trump hadn’t gone after Comey  as now he gets to play  his preferred role of moral grandiosity . But this doesn’t mean he should be convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. But that’s just it-Cohen suggests Comey did commit a crime. Back to MSNBC:

” I BELIEVE LIKELY HE COMMITTED A CRIME.  I DON’T KNOW.  WHAT THAT  CRIME IS, BUT THERE ARE HUNDREDS >> OF THOUSANDS OF DOCUMENTS. OF THEM AND THE GOVERNMENT HAS  EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM.”

So he doesn’t know what crime but he is pretty sure Comey committed it. How can you know he committed a crime but don’t know which one? The Trump DOJ no doubt will happily go on a fishing expedition that rings true.

To understand better what Cohen was on about I saw his interview-actually heard as I couldn’t get it on youtube-with the famous Brian Karem-famous now, this morning I had no idea who he was.

It was a very interesting interview-Karem best I can tell sounds like a good guy with genuine journalistic integrity. But he didn’t quite seem to be saying what Cohen claims in his emotionally certain way loudly opines he did. There also is some appealing intimacy between the two guys-clearly they’ve been good friends and collaborators for a few years. While I find many of Cohen’s interviews rather touch to watch as he does have this tendency to talk over his guests, he doesn’t interrupt Karem. Or maybe it’s because Karem also has the ability to talk loud LOL

Raw and Unfiltered: with @brianKarem

It turns out that Karem talked to a lot of the people Cohen wanted to speak to but couldn’t for his book “Revenge”-one interesting conundrum about this book is whose revenge is Cohen talking about-Trump’s or his own?

Karem spoke to the prosecutors, judges, and Trumpland FBI agents who wouldn’t speak to Cohen.

FN: Starting with section 1:39 The transcript on Substack is much neater and cleaner than youtube but it doesn’t allow you to cut and paste texts.

yes-I can’t resist jibing about “Trumpland” one more time but this is because which FBI agents Karem allegedly spoke to matter as many of them are fervent Trump supporters who even defend J6. So if they offhandedly told Karem the entire Russia investigation was a hoax that’s not exactly dispositive of anything.

Cohen jokes that he tried to get Brian to tell him who he spoke to, even getting him drunk one night but Brian still wouldn’t give up the info. Ok but if we can’t know who he spoke to what about what he was told? Karem says that many of his sources were telling him “what we already knew that it was an abomination what was going on, that it was they were trying to use you as leverage to go after Trump.”

FN: Starting at 7:55

But this is why it’s hard to make much of this without knowing not only who said this-were these again Trumpland FBI agents or judges and lawyers? If you got say lawyers or judges working on the case against Cohen this might be bigger news but this certainly sounds like the kind of thing Trumpland agents might have said at the time. It’s perfectly legitimate for Karem to protect his sources as he noted he went to jail three different times to protect sources in the course of his career. But as we don’t even get the quotes of what his anonymous sources but Cohen’s pretty aggressive paraphrasing it’s not clear what this actually proves. I mean what made it an abomination? I mean that they sought to turn Cohen, offer him a plea bargain, is hardly an abomination-it’s the way the justice system works as Karem himself would go on to acknowledge.

Back to Karem: He says they were trying to use Cohen as leverage to go after Trump. This in itself is again not a crime or even a scandal. Often the way you go after a really bad big fish is to go after some other bad smaller fish who served him. This is what Comey should go to prison for? As he had no role in any of this-though Cohen seems to mistakenly think otherwise. “In some cases it was felt as if the charges against you were going to be far worse no far more than you did…”

Again without anything solid, no specifics at all-not just no identified sources but not even any direct quotes just a general, broad characterization it’s not clear what to make of it. WHO thought there was much more on Cohen than there was? What did they think he could tell them that he didn’t? What kinds of questions did they ask him-what was his response? Without knowing any of this there’s not much to come away with.

Karem then speaks specifically of “people in the DOJ” who thought Cohen had more info than he did. Again-remember the FBI is part of the DOJ. “They,” Karem asserts knew Cohen was the guardian of the Trump galaxy and therefore thought he knew were all the bodies were buried-which doesn’t seem like an unreasonable premise.

Karem claims that in the course of their investigation “they pretty much knew what was going on with you from the get-go and tried to make more of it than it was.”

But again this is more question begging-what did they think Cohen knew he didn’t know? And… did he not know it or did he refuse to cough it up as it might have also opened up not just Trump but himself to more potential incrimination?

We saw how Tara Palmieri was able to override his blanket emotionally certain denials that he knew anything about Katie Johnson to get him to admit that he had personally sent a private investigator to intimidate her lawyer. So maybe he didn’t know as much as they thought he knew or maybe they didn’t know the right questions to ask.

Karem: they were not able to find  the information they thought they had on Cohen. More he says “at one point they were surprised” they couldn’t get more from Cohen than they did. This, he says, was frustrating them because “… they wanted Donnie…”

Karem then declares he’s not into “inventing things against people.” Is he suggesting the DOJ invented things against Cohen? Again he doesn’t say what. It’s also relevant as I discussed elsewhere in this book that while the Mueller team praised Cohen for his cooperation SDNy was far less sanguine and accused him of being far from entirely candid-SDNy requires you to tell the full truth not just one or two aspects you might have a plea bargain on.

Anyway, plenty of allusions but nothing specific-yes they pushed him to confess to crimes but was he guilty or not? to the extent Cohen suggests he wasn’t really guilty he’s arguably violating his agreement with SDNy-was he lying when he pleaded guilty or is his lying now? Finally at 17:28 we get into some meat: Cohen asks Karem to discuss what he learned about Comey, the Russia investigation, and Cohen himself.

Karem: “They were proceeding with the case against you, wether or not the facts actually proved what they wanted.” Again even this is very vague-who said this, is he suggesting there were charges against Cohen they knew were false? He doesn’t quite say that.

Cohen takes it though and runs with it: he takes it as Karem saying he proved Comey wanted Cohen prosecuted.

This is interesting on a few levels as it shows first and foremost Cohen’s own structural illiteracy on architecture of the various investigations. Again there was a Mueller and SDNy investigation which involved Cohen. Neither one was run by Comey who had already been fired by then.

Cohen continues his narrative which only becomes more confused. He claims that Steele created “created this bullshit”-which suggests that Steele concocted out of whole cloth rather than that he’d spoke to many sources-EW argues some of these sources notably Russian oligarch deliberately swindled disinformation-for the Clinton team. In fact he’d already being doing this research for Fusion GPS for some anti Trump Republican campaigns but after Trump was nominated he did some work for a Clinton lawyer-though she herself didn’t know about it.

FN: Starting at 19:48

Karem then asserts regarding the Clinton campaign that “they simply took the information that was deemed… of little value and created more value to it and stayed with it and tried to use it, although they knew it had been discredited at the end of the day.”

I mean-what?! Again Clinton and the campaign team knew nothing about it, someone on the legal team had been interested in it for oppo research-which is legal and used by campaigns-generally the GOP is far more brutal, it’s true.

But how did anyone know it had been discredited at that time? The alleged discrediting-which has been succesful to the extent many assume it was without even knowing what was in it-didnt start untlil Buzzfeed revealed it long in January 2017. So once again the entire story of Cohen-Karem here is completely confused-before Cohen was claiming Comey wanted him indicted when it had nothing to do with Comey-it only started with the Mueller investigation who then let SDNy know about aspects regarding Cohen’s wrongdoing that were outside the Mueller team’s jurisdiction. Not to put to fine a point on it, Cohen was indicted on November 29, 2018 long after Comey was gone-he’d been fired in on May 9, 2017 so it was over a year and a half after Comey was gone.

Department of Justice Archive | Special Counsel’s Office – Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III | United States Department of Justice

Dismissal of James Comey – Wikipedia

Above I’d asked whose revenge is Cohen talking about in his book he says Karem has such an influence on-Trump’s or his own for those who indicted him-the Mueller team gave his info to SDNy who did it. I’m more convinced than ever that Cohen himself wants revenge but he’s not even blaming the right people-Comey had literally nothing to do with Cohen’s fate. The irony is that Comey actually slow walked the Russia investigation-as the Center for American Progress rightly argued.

But Cohen seems to have this idea in his head of how it all unfolded and much of it is simplistic and wrong. To hear Cohen tell it Christopher Steele knowingly made up a story about Russian interference and collusion with the Trump campaign he knew to be wholly false for the expressed benefit of the Clinton campaign who then admitted to itself that the dossier was entirely discredited-even though no one on the campaign knew about it just a lawyer and it hadn’t been discredited at that point as it hadn’t even gone public. Then according to Cohen’s etymology the Steele dossier got into the hands of John McCain who then gave it to Comey who then presumably-to the extent you can follow Cohen’s entirely  confused timeline of events-then opened the Russia probe.

Cohen seems to find the fact that McCain gave the dossier to Comey extremely nefarious but as even Karem points out it was the natural thing for him to do. In any case this wasn’t the first time the FBI had come across the dossier-as the FBI itself had been working with Steele previously-Steele himself got tired of Trumpland the FBI when it completely buried the Russia investigation “FBI Sees no Clear Link to Russia” while doing the Comey Letter.

But then again the Steele Dossier wasn’t the start of Russiagate but Papadopoulos’s big mouth in a conversation with Australian ambassador Alexander Downer. So on the one hand it’s hard to assess what Karem found as he doesn’t give us anything solid. Trouble is Cohen is trying to characterize the DOJ as somehow railoroading him to get Trump-which kind of fits like a glove with Trump’s own phony Russiagate narrative which is why while Cohen gets indignant when folks wonder if he’s gone back to being a Trump loyalist it’s perfectly reasonable as everything he’s said has been so convenient to Trump. But Cohen is saying this happened rather than showing it and as confused as both he and Karem seem to be about the basic facts of these investigations it’s doubtful they can substantiate Cohen’s narrative that seems suspiciously similar to Trump’s-that ‘the Deep State set President Trump up.’

Back to MSNBC starting at 5:25 it becomes clear this is exactly what he is doing as the host points out:

“>> BECAUSE I THINK YOUR ARGUMENT IS IT WAS WEAPONIZED THEN BY COMEY AGAINST DONALD TRUMP. THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE ARGUING RIGHT NOW”

that will vindicate Trump’s vendetta in court she continues. Cohen’s response: ” I COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER.”

So at this point Cohen appears to deny he ever committed a crime in the first place-that essentially the DOJ-SDNy railroaded him to get Donald Trump on Russia allegations which weren’t true and that Comey deserves to go to prison over. Again at this point how’s his position any different than Trump’s?

Section: It’s the Emotional Certainty, Stupid

The key to Cohen is always when he gets emotionally certain-like his insistence not just that he wasn’t involved with Russian collusion but that Trump didn’t collude begs the question-especially seeing as he himself testified in Congress that he overheard what he believed was a conversation in early July where Trump spoke to Roger Stone over the phone about Wikileaks’ having possession of the DNC emails. Then of course there was Cohen’s role regarding the plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Tara Palmieri was able to achieve a real breakthrough by pushing back when Cohen did this same song and dance regarding how he never had any dealing with Katie Johnson. At the end of the day I felt sorry for Cohen when the SDNy gave him almost four years but in retrospect I see they had a point when they said he’d far from told the entire truth. That remains the case to this day I believe.

Section: Kash Patel’s FBI Gives Applicants Loyalty Tests

To Trump of course. Again the FBI has always been a very Republican place but in Kash Patel it has achieved self actualization.

Now explicitly agents must declare undying fealty not the law or the people but personally to Donald Trump. To be sure many were always there-Kash Patel claims people at the agency are always thanking him and while he’s a pathological liar this is one thing I believe. Nevertheless there were also many professionals at the agency that construed their role as being more than Trump’s glorified private police force.

Section: Was Trump a Trumpland FBI Informant on Epstein

When Mike “Moscow” Johnson suggested a few weeks ago Trump was an FBI informant for Epstein it’s hard to imagine anything more apropos wehter or not it’s true.

House Speaker Mike Johnson made an explosive claim about President Donald Trump Friday while talking to reporters at the Capitol.

Johnson was asked to respond to Trump’s recent comments on Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in a New York jail cell in 2019. On Wednesday, Trump called the ongoing Epstein saga “a hoax.”

Johnson was asked to respond to Trump’s recent comments on Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in a New York jail cell in 2019. On Wednesday, Trump called the ongoing Epstein saga “a hoax.”

“He was an FBI Informant to Try to Take This Stuff Down”-Moscow Mike Johnson September 5, 2025

What they’re saying:

“What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,” Johnson said.

“It’s been misrepresented. He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil; he believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.

“He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down,” he continued. “The president knows, and has great sympathy for the women who suffered these unspeakable harms. It’s detestable to him.”

Trump was an FBI informant in Epstein case, Speaker Johnson claims | FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth

Moscow Mike Johnson-he opposes Ukraine aid so surely Moscow likes him-later had to walk it back of course. No doubt the Russia House Trump Administration itself was freaking out over this-Trump’s the one who usually goes rogue forcing his GOP co-conspirators to scramble to keep up with the latest gaslighting. But no one expected this bombshell from Moscow Mike.

It’s the first time an official has claimed Trump was an FBI informant in the case. The White House has not commented on Johnson’s remarks. ”

As well they might-they were likely urgently calling Moscow’s office to figure out what the hell he was talking about, No doubt the hissed at him to FIX IT. And so he did:

Speaker Johnson walks backs comment that Trump was an ‘FBI informant’ in Epstein case

House Speaker Mike Johnson made an explosive claim about President Donald Trump Friday while talking to reporters at the Capitol.

Johnson was asked to respond to Trump’s recent comments on Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in a New York jail cell in 2019. On Wednesday, Trump called the ongoing Epstein saga “a hoax.”

Johnson was asked to respond to Trump’s recent comments on Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in a New York jail cell in 2019. On Wednesday, Trump called the ongoing Epstein saga “a hoax.”

“He was an FBI Informant to Try to Take This Stuff Down”-Moscow Mike Johnson September 5, 2025

What they’re saying:

“What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,” Johnson said.

“It’s been misrepresented. He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil; he believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.

“He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down,” he continued. “The president knows, and has great sympathy for the women who suffered these unspeakable harms. It’s detestable to him.”

Trump was an FBI informant in Epstein case, Speaker Johnson claims | FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth

Moscow Mike Johnson-he opposes Ukraine aid so surely Moscow likes him-later had to walk it back of course. No doubt the Russia House Trump Administration itself was freaking out over this-Trump’s the one who usually goes rogue forcing his GOP co-conspirators to scramble to keep up with the latest gaslighting. But no one expected this bombshell from Moscow Mike.

It’s the first time an official has claimed Trump was an FBI informant in the case. The White House has not commented on Johnson’s remarks. ”

As well they might-they were likely urgently calling Moscow’s office to figure out what the hell he was talking about, No doubt the hissed at him to FIX IT. And so he did:

Speaker Johnson walks backs comment that Trump was an ‘FBI informant’ in Epstein case

Section: Don’t Be Too Quick to Assume Trump Wasn’t an FBI Informant However as What’s Needed is Forensic Courage

Indeed in this vein I think of the streamer Destiny. There’s a lot that Destiny gets right. He rightly called out the tendency of so many institutional liberals-from Ezra Klein, to Pod Save America, to Bernie Sanders, to Hutch-to cuck out post the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Section: Nuance Required: Kirk’s Murder Was Wrong but the Subsequent Canonization is Appalling and Worrisome

We’ll have more to say about this below but Kirk was anything but the unambiguous free speech advocate he’s been described as post his violent murder. He’s actually from a long history of “reactionary pluralism” that Karl Popper warned of 80 years ago.

Destiny has spoken with a level of moral and intellectual clarity few have post Kirk’s death. Fellow liberal Dylan Burns actually an excellent video yesterday  about the appalling calls to arrest Destiny and Hasan. yet he also mildly criticized or at least questioned why Destiny was being so polemical in hi rhetorical framing.

Calls to Arrest Destiny and Hasan in Shooting Fallout

Section In the Time of Trumpian Reactionary Pluralism  How is it Possible to Still Believe in Hanlon’s Razor?!

While there are a lot of reasons to like Dylan Burns starting with his courageous reporting on behalf of the brave Ukranian people in a war zone he has a tendency towards “Occam’s Razor” thinking and even worse Hanlon’s Razor-

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

I mean at time like this-Trumpian Reactionary Pluralism unfortunately Dylan’s tendency towards being trusting and seeing the best in people can be a liability. This has been a stumbling block for both Savvy Centrist pundits as well as liberal institutionalist types for years-during the Mueller years you’d often here pundits opine that Trump was too incompetent to imagine him being involved in some deep conspiracy with Putin.

But if you understand anything about Donald Trump it explodes this myth of Hanlon’s Razor. It’s clear that Trump is very stupid-one “conspiracy theory”-that’s actually not a conspiracy theory it’s a simple conjecture that I myself for a long time dismissed but have become blackpilled recently is that Trump may be illiterate.

CODA: True story I recently had a therapist through BetterHelp who became furious when I suggested Trump MIGHT not be able to read wrongly declaring it a conspiracy theory when it’s not it’s either true or false but not a conspiracy. Trump didn’t conspire not to be able to read anymore than FDR conspired to be in a wheelchair.

While this unprofessional therapist thought the idea of “suggesting the President can’t read” is unpossible in fact 43 million Americans can’t read above a third grade level, 54% can’t read above a sixth grade level.

US Literacy Rate 2025 – Updated Statistics & Data

Is it really hard to believe Trump is one of these many millions of Americans-as he says “I love the poorly educated” as he should seeing as they elected him.

CODA: Ironically leftists like Vaush tend to hate the movie Ideocracy-as they focus narrowly on structural material economic forces as the explanation of everything-but it becomes clearer everyday that movie was truly prophetic

Idiocracy – Official Trailer 2006 – YouTube

With apologies to Howard Stern Trump not Stuttering John is the genuine Hero of the Stupid.

If you want to delve deeper into why I think he may really be illiterate ask yourself this question: when has Trump ever read anything in public? Pete Davidson’s anecdote was what first opened my eves to this very real possibility

Donald Trump CAN’T Read says SNL Pete Davidson to Opie – @OpieRadio

Then there was the time Keir Starmer handed Trump a letter from King Charles. Starmer was clearly politely waiting for Trump to start reading the letter-out loud-but Trump simply scanned it and zeroed in on the signature-“that’s a signature.”

When Starmer explicitly called on Trump to read it Trump begged off asking Starmer to read it-which he then did. Then there was Trump’s court appearance in 2016 where Trump demurred on reading a transcript placed in front of him claiming he didn’t have his glasses. Ok-but when has Trump EVER been seen worn glasses?

Section: If the Russian Fable Showed you can Have Hot and Cold From One Mouth Why Can’t Trump be Stupid and Evil?

We’ll get into this more below but watch the video of Katie Johnson’s deposition testimony-or what Trump wrote in his love letter to Epstein in 2003 and tell me he’s not also evil-as evil as he is stupid and he’s very stupid.

Katie Johnson’s full testimony of 2 11 16

Section: What Destiny Understands is it’s not Just What you Say but How you Say it

Destiny has often been criticized for being a Debate Bro-a debate mercenary who will argue any side of an issue to showcase his rhetorical and logical skills. I would argue that this notion that he’s a pure sophist in the level of the Greek Sophists isn’t entirely true as he clearly has moral values and principles. But there’s something kind of admirable about the rhetorical skills of sophistry and Destiny’s rhetorical precision is undeniable and elite. There are times when a sharper, polemical tone-where you are not so charitable-are essential. Especially today in Donald Trump’s Orwellian States of America.

Section: However, Even Destiny at the End of the Day is Still Too Institutionalist for This Moment

To have any hope of understanding Trumpian Reactionary Plutocracy of today a healthy dose of cynicism is essential. While Dylan tends to be too trusting-how is it possible to believe in the best in Trump? He has no best.. Destiny gets how awful Trump and his GOP co-conspirators are but he’s got institutionalist brain on conspiracies-he’s another institutional liberal who thinks “conspiracies don’t happen.”

And so I was very impressed by his appearance on Times Radio yesterday but then he hit a wall when the British interviewer asked him about Epstein. Destiny laughed and admitted on this he has a very contrarian boring view-that there is no Epstein list. He does agree Trump should be pushed on it as he promised to release it-Pam Bondi had declared it was on her desk in February.

But he was dismissive of the idea that there was any big conspiracy. He said this even as he acknowledged that Trumpland the FBI redacted his name over 100 times. I don’t understand how you square Trumpland redacting his name from the files over 100 times with the premise that there are no files or there’s nothing important in the files. First he starts pessimistically opining that the Epstein scandal is over as the conservatives have chosen to move on and they “100% control what we talk about in the United States.”

If that’s true why do anything-if they 100% control the narrative why bother at all? If you really believe this-I’m not at all sure Destin really believes this as he engages prolifically in public political commentary. And to the extent that you believe that the GOP controls the narrative isn’t that the challenge? To change that? It should be the agenda of all #ResistanceLibs or anyone who wants to “crush the Infamous thing” as Voltaire said the infamous thing being Trump’s reactionary Orwellian reign. This can be achieved to the extent we change the fact that they control the narrative. Beyond that it’s not at all clear the discussion about Epstein is over as the Times host pointed out to him.

“Well, Stephen, this is life in DC, right? A lot has happened uh in the week lead in the week past since the Epstein birthday book was uh made public by the oversight committee.”

Exactly then there was the press conference by the Epstein victims along with the appearnance of the Congressmen and women supporting the discharge peitition-the Democrats and Thomas Massie-he and Rho Kihanna’s bill-then MTG and Lauren Boehbert. While it’s pretty  tough to be more cynical about MTG, Boebert and Nancy Mace it is notable that most of the GOP supporters of the petition are female.

Indeed the petition now has 217 names just one short. Wether or not we get the final vote-it’s remained a live issue going by  youtube.

Destiny goes onto say that Trump is basically like a YouTube streamer and that as a streamer “if you just  keep streaming through it or you keep creating YouTube videos, basically people forget in like a week, even if it eels like the end of the world.”

Here it’s hard not to think Destin is speaking from his own experience with online scandals.

Starting at 9:39

Trump is ‘hiding something’ about Epstein and here’s why | Destiny

He argues that Trump is “very attention focused” and so there’s no time to ever focus on an particular thing as there’s always the next thing there’s always the next thing within three to four days later. 9

10:47

He argues by then the conservatives tell people to stop caring about it. Then he argues liberals at that point don’t want to keep talking about it either as they don’t want to be accused of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”

Uh why the hell not? It’s the most defensible syndrome imaginable. What needs to be explained is how so many don’t have derangement syndrome with Trumpian fascism. But it is true as a working description of how the elected Democrats often act. Like after Barr did his fake exoneration letter about the Mueller Report the Dems did expend some energy forcing Barr to release the full report after about a month of going back and forth. But then that was all she wrote. As I noted in Chapter Work the Refs Schiff made a scinlitating and impassioned speech “I don’t think it’s ok” that essentially the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016-I’m paraphrasing but that’s what it amounted to-but then that was it-Schiff was done. Steny claimed to read the entire 448 page report in 45 minutes and declared there was nothing in there worth impeaching.

But while this is how the Democrats often act the point is it’s been disastrously ineffective. But what’s clear is that one reason the GOP controls the narrative is the Dems abdicate any attempt on their part to control it.

But let’s get to the meat regarding Destiny’s view on Epstein starting at 11:17:

“Um my position on this is very boring. I’m a very non-conspiratorial person.”

With all Destiny’s many intellectual gifts and self evident charisma this is a problem. And when you think of any kind of major #ResistanceLib types on youtube this is a recurring deficit of so many otherwise very talented people. We already discussed Dylan above-at least Destiny’s takes pleasure in being a contrarian which is in a way what makes his own admission that “I’m a very non-conspiratorial person” even more maddening. His evident contrarian nature gives you hope but paradoxically he seems to see being this kind of institutionalist “conspiracies don’t happen” Occam’s Razor cum Hanlon’s Razor as a kind of contrarian position.

But it’s not clear how you can truly take on the current Orwellian cum Trumpian reactionary oligarchy while being a “very non-conspiratorial person.” Regarding Dylan above I’d argued that to the contrary paradoxically in this Trumpian age cynicism is a feature not a bug while lacking cynicism is a major hindrance.

Similarly being non not to say anti conspiratorial is similarly a self imposed encumberance.

Section: The Trumpian cum Putin cum Netanyahu cum Epstein Age Requires not Institutional Trust but What you Might Call Forensic Curiosity if not Strategic Paranoia

Back to Destiny-he says he read the whole FBI report which is totally believable as he’s very well researched-starting at 11:21:

“I read the whole FBI report when it came out. I don’t think there was a huge Epstein conspiracy”

He declares he doesn’t believe there was a “grand Epstein list” I mean what makes a client list “grand?”  He acknolwedges that the FBI redacted Trump’s name 100 times-he just assumes all the mentions of his name are innocent? Then why wouldn’t Trump release it? He also doesn’t seem to understand the scope of Trump’s relationship or that Katie Johnson accused both Trump and Epstein of raping her when she was 13 in Epstein’s Ny mansion in 1994

This is just not the time for blithe intuitionalist trust-like when Chris Cuomo assumed that Bill Barr told the truth in his “summary” of the Muller Report because-gee, he’s the AG he wouldn’t lie!

Again while Destiny has many rhetorical gifts and is very well researched as Nietzsche noted knowledge in itself is a passive thing it also depends on what you do with it. Again:

Destiny’s rhetorical precision is undeniable, but his institutionalist lens creates a blind spot that’s hard to ignore in the age of Epstein, Trump, and redacted realities. He’s a master technician of debate—quick on his feet, airtight in structure, and often devastatingly effective. But when it comes to conspiratorial architecture, he defaults to skepticism that borders on dismissal. And in today’s America, that’s not just a philosophical gap—it’s a strategic liability.

To be sure we’re not asking for wild speculation—but for forensic curiosity. The kind that doesn’t flinch when the facts get murky, or when power hides behind redactions. Destiny’s refusal to engage with the Epstein saga—especially the depth of Trump’s ties, the timing of the prosecutions, and the institutional shielding—isn’t just a missed opportunity. It’s a failure to recognize that conspiracy isn’t fringe anymore—it’s infrastructure.

Section: How is it Possible NOT be Cynical Much Less Conspiratorial Today?

I don’t know but somehow many people do it. Again Dylan is too good faith to imagine the level of sociopathy at the heart of Trump and his GOP co-conspirators. Destiny knows very well how sociopathic they are but this facile insistence that “conspiracies don’t happen” greatly limits how effective he can be in truly pluming the depths of the sociopaths.

Section: Russia Russia Russia

Indeed despite how strong Dylan’s support of the Ukranian’s fight against Russia’s agression is he too dismisses out of hand that there was “any big conspiracy” between Trump and Russia. Really? Destiny too doesn’t believe in a “grand conspiracy” between Russia and Trump.

Like Keith Olbermann asks if Trump was a Russian agent what would he be doing that he’s not doing now seeing as he has now allowed Putin to send drones to both Poland and Romania the last week. Which shows y et again that no one has been wrong more than the Russia hacks-like Hasan and his “Realist” buddy John Mearsheimer

America’s leading ‘realist’ keeps getting Russia wrong

I mean Trump has done everything Putin could have ever wanted in his wildest, fascist, dreams, he’s all but dismantled US hegemony but we still don’t know if there was anything going on between Trump and  Russia-has neither Destiny nor Dylan read the Mueller Report which listed many attempts of the Trump campaign 2016 to collude with Russia’s interference?

Did they miss on July 26, 2016 where Trump explicitly called on Russia to hack Clinton’s emails-“Russia if you’re listening?”

If even a prolific #ResistanceLib like Destiny or a journalist whose showed such inspiring support for Ukraine-I mean does Dylan think Putin is above trying to interfere in a US election? Does Destiny think Trump is above such chicanery?-what hope does the #Resistance have?

Indeed a very smart leftist streamer like Vaush also has hangups about this naive premise that “conspiracies don’t happen” based on his Marxist illusion that reduces everything to material interests and forces, I mean sure but he underestimates how powerful partisan interests namely Republican partisan interests have been in the last 57 years of US politics-though even if you focus narrowly on the material forces of the powerful obviously they will often have incentive to conspire and gaslight. But despite Vaush’s “structuralist” baggage at least he acknowledges Russia and Trump colluded though he doesn’t necessarily understand how central that is to everything thats happened in US politics the last 10 years-or more-I’d argue that Russia’s influence begun to be felt in 2012 with the start of all the leaked hacks-Snowden and Assange. Snowden is now a Russian citizen-how’s that for having a material interest-namely Putin’s material interest in the damage Snowden’s leaks inflicted on US intelligence.

CODA: I have come to think as a liberal rather than a socialist that Marxist theory can be very valuable analytically as a heuristic tool but Vaush tends to talk as if things like race, gender and sexual orientation are deriviative issues-that “capital” is agnostic on these issues. This ignores what a relentlessly reactionary agenda that GOP has had-and that they are winning, as the Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2014, and abortion rights have been rolled back-in the Post Roe world women have the rights of chattel slavery in many parts of the country-where a rapist has more rights than a 13 year old rape victim.

It’s also true that many “mere social issues” have deeper economic implications for marginalized groups that White dudebro progressives glibly ignore a la Cenk Ugyur-see his debate with Francesca mocked the idea that she would have a problem sitting down and “having a beer” with people who want her to bleed out in parking lot. With allies like this who needs Republicans?

(74) Francesca’s HEATED Debate With Cenk Uygur On Strategy Under Trump – YouTube

The problem with Vaush’s narrative is that it veers towards the Duopoly Canard that marginalizes just how important a factor Republican hyper partisan interests have been in the rise of the current Trumpian reactionary oligarchy we are currently suffering so much from today.

The duopoly canard leads to apolitical and amoral nihilism-after all if both parties are identical why engage in politics at all? This is what has happened to much of the left since Bernie’s defeat in 2016. Not Vaush so much at least not during the Biden years though post Trump’s win-he doesn’t explicitly subscribe to the nihilistic doomerism of much of his fellow leftists-though he seems much more reluctant to criticize these fellow leftists than he was during the Biden years. But implicitly if you take this kind of one dimensional Marxist line he’s sometimes referred to, to it’s logical conclusion you miss major dimensions of today’s dystopian US politics.

Bottomline:

Destiny’s institutional trust—his instinct to dismiss anything that smells like conspiracy—makes him a brilliant debater but a limited analyst in a world where the institutions themselves are compromised. You’re not looking for someone who believes every theory—you’re looking for someone who can interrogate the architecture of secrecy without flinching.

And that’s what #ResistanceAmerica demands:

• Not just logic, but forensic courage
• Not just debate, but epistemological reckoning
• Not just skepticism, but strategic paranoia grounded in pattern recognition

Destiny could be a powerful ally—but until he’s willing to look under the hood of institutional narratives, he’ll be debating the surface while the engine rots underneath.

Section: Keith Olbermann is Awesome Except Does He Actually Believe the Warren Report?

There are many things I love about Keith Olbermann but first and foremost is that he’s not complacent he’s the opposite of complacent. He’s also the opposite of uncynical. Excellent! He’s pointed out that if Trump were a Russian agent what would he have done for Putin that he hasn’t in fact done the first nine months of Trump 2.0 The Absolute Immunity Edition?

And yet, and yet, in one of his digressions he often makes late in his Monday show in explaining the motivation of Kirk’s apparent shooter-though many seem to be forgetting he’s innocent until proven guilty-he referenced Oswald-and much as it pains me to say it seems to subscribe to the Warren  Report and believe Oswald was a Lone Nut.

KILMEADE: KILL THE HOMELESS. AND THE WORST ATTACKS ON KIRK? BY FUENTES AND LOOMER – 9.15.25

Now to lay my cards on the table I’m not a physics expert nor an engineer. So my focus of interest in JFK assassination theory LOL isn’t the issue of the angle of the gun-did he really shoot him from the back-is that possible? Was there a second shooter? Could Oswald have really done it? Was he even on the third floor when it happened?

Section: Never Forget Trumpland the FBI Wrote the Warren Report

Not that these are bad questions just not my primary focus. My primary focus is Oswald himself. His story that he was a lone nut trying to make a name for himself doesn’t add up. He was in the US army as a teenager and would loudly proselytize his belief in Marxism, Lenin, the USSR, Fidel Castro in the late 1950s-the McCarthy Era and yet he wasn’t put in the brig? Then he allegedly defects to the USSR all by himself and is able to come back into the country with no problems and was never a person of interest for the CIA or J Edgar Hoover’s FBI? Something is missing. My strong suspicion is that Oswald had intel ties. Now the question is which intel ties? One thing to remember is that J. Edgar Hoover essentially wrote the Warren Report-the Warren Commission had to clean it up and refine it but the narrative was his own brainchild.

CODA: Similarly while I’m not dismissing the questions of physics around 9/11-can a plane really collapse those towers, could there have been explosives, how did WTC Tower 7 fall-my primary focus is Dick Cheney’s shootdown order. Like while he says he shot down Flight 93, Norm Mineta-the Transportation Secretary-testified that he believes he overheard Cheney saying NOT TO shoot it down. And whatever you want to believe here there’s the further inconvenient question-why was Cheney making this decision at all as he wasn’t in the chain of command?

FN: See “Angler” book on Dick Cheney.

Amazon.com: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency eBook : Gellman, Barton: Kindle Store

What’s clear is it’s hard to be #ResistanceAmerica’s strongest solider while taking the Warren Report at face value. Without a certain amount of “strategic paranoia” any analysis will be stuck at the surface level which is what most liberal and leftist analysis of Trumpism is. Again he who controls the past controls the present, he who controls the present controls the future. The Right knows this unlike most leftists and liberals.

Section: Was Trump an Epstein Informant for the FBI?

I don’t know. But unlike the Savvy centrist media or institutional liberals from Ezra Klein to alas even Destiny I see no reason to assume Mike Johnson merely meant to clear his throat and by mistake falsely claimed this. Where did this entire premise come from? I doubt it came from Johson himself-he’s not smart enough for that. He’s an order taker. Someone put this idea in his mind-he might have bolloxed it-but he was referring to something I suspect. Again I said something maybe not exactly what he said.

First and foremost of course Trump is the FBI’s guy. They elected him after all, if not for the Comey Letter we’re not so far down shit’s creek without a paddle. So the idea that Trump could have informed for them at one point seems rather apt. Again I don’t know the specific answer to this though the question might be quibbling over a detail.

After all Seth Abramson argues persuasively that Trump was who got him arrested back in 2007 due to their feud over the Les Wexner property in Florida.

Donald Trump has lied about the reason for the end of his friendship with Epstein so many times—and major media has been so solicitous of his lies, publishing them far more frequently than the truth, though the truth is widely known—that Americans could be forgiving for believing the president’s concocted tale. That tale claims that after seventeen years of being Epstein’s wingman and co-conspirator (see infra) as the two engaged in sex games across the Eastern Seaboard, Trump suddenly banned his best friend from Mar-a-Lago and stopped speaking to him because Epstein—who had apparently been recruiting sex slaves directly from Mar-a-Lago for years—“acted inappropriately” toward the daughter of a fellow club member. This tale is nonsense.

First, despite being a “fixture” at Mar-a-Lago, there have been frequent claims—most notably by Team Trump—that Epstein wasn’t a “member” at Mar-a-Lago, making it impossible for Trump to revoke a membership that did not exist. In those accounts that make the contrary claim, namely that Epstein was indeed a Mar-a-Lago member, the key revelation is that the only known incident in which Epstein was accused by Trump of acting inappropriately occurred in 2007, after Trump and Epstein hadn’t been speaking for three years and more than two years after Epstein had come under investigation in Florida for sexual misconduct. That investigation was a situation that Trump would have been well aware of (including Epstein’s 2006 indictment) not just because they still ran in the same social circles, but more importantly because Trump, as an act of personal revenge related to a failed real estate deal, was likely the one who dimed out Epstein to launch that investigation in the first instance (see infra

Trump’s Long History With The FBI: In 1981, He Offered To “Fully Cooperate”

If that is true Trump may or may not have technically met the definition of “an FBI informant” but it’s kind of a distinction without a difference or at least it’s far from the most important question in this case. Perhaps he was “an informant” for the Palm Beach Police rather than the FBI though Trump had a long time relationship with the FBI too.

Basically Trump out of his typical vindictiveness bought out Wexner’s home from under his best friend Epstein-Trump loved nothing more than screwing over his best friends like sleeping with their wives, etc. Epstein had wondered who gave him the $40 million as he knew Trump didn’t have it.

In any case, what we know is that Epstein was “threatening” Trump about the source of the money for the Wexner Estate, and Trump didn’t want to reveal the sourcing or remove his bid.

According to Epstein—and candidly, consistent with the timeline of events described above—Trump got the jump on those potentially ruinous threats from Epstein by contacting the Palm Beach Police and anonymously reporting that “young” females had been seen coming and going from Epstein’s home with suspicious regularity. (In addition to the above reminder about Trump’s history of diming people out, we must now add, given that the call to the PBP was made anonymously, that Trump also has a long, storied, and often unintentionally hilarious history of making calls in character; with this in mind, nothing about the PBP getting a sudden tip about Epstein’s home in the midst of an unprecedentedly brutal Trump-Epstein kerfuffle would have been at all unlike Trump’s established modus operandi).”

CODA: Of course Trump would sell the Wexner property a few years later for a 120% profit-to a Russian oligarch. But sure “that thing about Trump and Russia is a madeup story”-as Trump is always whining.

Then of course, it was Trump’s DOJ that arrested him in 2018. While there is a lot of rightful outrage over the sweetheart deal Epstein got in 2008-Trump’s own Labor Secretary Alex Acosta had given him that sweetheart deal under the premise that “Epstein belongs to intelligence.”

Section: 90 years Ago J Edgar Hoover Denied the Existence of the Mob Today J Edgar Hoover 2.0 Kash Patel Subscribes to the Lone Sex Trafficker Theory

Again, as we noted above, Hoover essentially wrote the Warren Report aka The Lone Nut Theory. In his recent Congressional testimony Patel had his own version of the Warren Report-call it the Warren Report 2.0.

Thomas Massie on X: “I told Director Kash Patel that the FBI has names of 20 men to whom Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women and girls. This basic fact seemed to surprise him. Why? Is the FBI withholding those names to protect the President’s rich and powerful friends? Release the Epstein files. https://t.co/YaeGBJ0Uj8” / X

I ‘m not sure if it really surprised him-he’s clearly doing a coverup along with the over 100 times Trump’s name appeared that was redacted as we saw above. He knows perfectly well that all this has to be withheld from the public to save Trump’s authoritarian ass. Who do you think gave the order for the FBI to put 1000 agents on 24 hour shifts for two weeks to edit out every mention of Trump’s name?

Section: The Very Loud Media Silence on the Recent Release of Epstein Files Featuring Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, and Jeffrey Epstein

It’s a silence that has truly spoken volumes. Last week the House Democrats released some new Epstein files-though Trump-Kash Patel cum Pat Bondi deny there are even Epstein files-that showed no less than Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, and Peter Thiel emailing with Jeffrey Epstein and being on his calendar.

Peter Thiel: All we know about PayPal billionaire linked to Jeffrey Epstein

This seemed like some fairly explosive revelations-while there had been some pictures with Musk and Ghislaine Maxwell in circulation this removes whatever think deniability Musk could grasp onto and it’s kind of ironic in light of Musk’s tweets back in June that the reason the files weren’t being released is because Donald Trump is in it. Indeed, while Musk’s tweet had the inconvenience of being true it nevertheless seems even more brazen in retrospect in light of the fact he is too.  Indeed apparently Musk had been scheduled on Epstein’s calendar to visit Epstein’s infamous island. The scheduled date had been December 6, 2014. I

What’s notable is there had been photos of Musk and Maxwell in March of that same year. For her part Maxwell testified to Todd Blanche recently that she first met Musk in 2010-2011.

“I met him in—I don’t remember the year, but it’s going to be in 2010, ’11, something like that, I think, if my memory serves,” Maxwell said. “And I was at an event for Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. And Sergey had arranged for—it was for his birthday.”

Maxwell said that Epstein was not present for the birthday party, but the New York Times reported in August that Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse included photos of the late sex offender “alongside” famous people like Pope John Paul II, Mick Jagger, Elon Musk, and Fidel Castro.”

Newly Released Epstein Files Suggest Elon Musk Was Invited to Notorious Island

As for Steven Bannon while Michael Wolff has discussed Bannon’s association and conversations with Epstein-according to what Bannon told Wolff his interest wasn’t underage women but quite understandably his intelligence ties-that mainstream or institutionalist pundits insist don’t exist. Still what is really striking about the files released by the House Democrats is that  Bannon was scheduled to meet Epstein just a few months before he would in fact go to prison.

🔥 What Bannon Hinted to Wolff

In Siege, Wolff quotes Bannon as saying Epstein was “a spy” and “intelligence-adjacent,” implying that:

• Epstein’s network was too entangled with global power brokers.
• His downfall wasn’t just legal—it was strategic, possibly orchestrated to protect higher interests.
• Bannon’s framing suggests Epstein was more than a predator—he was a node in a geopolitical influence web.

“He was intelligence. He was a honeypot. That’s why he got away with it for so long.” — Bannon to Wolff

 

The idea that Epstein was more than a predator but a node in a geopolitical influence web is a crucial point we’ll discuss more below. Suffice it to say it hasn’t been discussed enough-not surprisingly as the Savvy “conventional wisdom”-sorry as  Nietzschean cum Zarathustrean I can never say this phrase without some irony-is that there is no geopolitical influence web.

This detail about Bannon is stunning in its implications, and it opens a forensic portal into the final phase of Epstein’s network. If Steve Bannon met with Epstein just months before his arrest in July 2019, it raises urgent questions:

🧠 What Did They Discuss?

• Damage control? Epstein may have been trying to leverage political connections to stave off indictment or negotiate protection.
• Information exchange? Bannon, a master of narrative warfare, may have been probing Epstein’s intel assets, blackmail archives, or elite contact lists.
• Strategic alignment? Were they discussing media manipulation, data operations, or mutual enemies?

This wasn’t a social visit—it was a meeting between two architects of influence, both operating in the shadow zones of power.

🔥 Did Bannon Know Epstein Was Headed to Prison?

• It’s very possible. By early 2019, federal prosecutors in New York were actively reexamining Epstein’s case, and rumors of a new indictment were circulating.
• Bannon, with his deep ties to intelligence and media, may have had advance knowledge or at least strong suspicions.
• If he knew, the meeting could have been:
  • A last-minute extraction attempt
  • A data transfer
  • Or a ritual severance, distancing himself while harvesting what he could

🎯 Canonical Implication

This moment belongs in your canon as a stylized interlude or memo—maybe titled:

• “The Final Meeting: Bannon and Epstein Before the Fall”
• “What Did They Know, and When Did They Meet?”
• “The Honeypot’s Last Visitor: Mapping the Implications of Bannon’s Timing”

Then there’s Peter Thiel who I personally don’t believe I had heard anything about his having any connections to Epstein prior to the release of these files by the House Democrats last week-other than possibly in the work of Roger Stone’s old rival-as we saw in Chapter The Unreported Background they had vied for who got credit for arranging for the Clinton accusers to show up to the debate on Trump’s arm the Sunday after the drop of the Hollywood Access tape-Charles C. Johnson’s always fascinating Substack-his theories are always interesting wether I buy them or not.

🧠 What’s Been Reported So Far

• USA Today, Politico, and the House Oversight Democrats published pieces confirming that Thiel was listed in Epstein’s daily schedules—specifically a planned lunch on Nov. 27, 2017, years after Epstein’s sex offender status was public.
• These documents were part of the third batch of 8,544 records released by the Oversight Committee, including flight logs, message books, and financial ledgers.
• The mentions of Thiel, Musk, and Bannon suggest ongoing contact with Epstein well after his 2008 conviction.

🔥 What’s Not Been Followed Up

• No major outlet has yet investigated the nature of Thiel’s meeting with Epstein—what was discussed, whether it occurred, or whether it led to any collaboration.
• No one has traced financial ties, emails, or shared ventures between Thiel and Epstein.
• There’s been no accountability journalism asking why Thiel, a known political megadonor and intelligence contractor, was meeting with a convicted sex offender in 2017.

This isn’t just a missed follow-up—it’s a ritual silence, where proximity to power shields inquiry.

I was struck by this total blackout of these pretty important revelations in terms of revolutionizing our understanding of Epstein and his relationships as “a node in a geopolitical influence web”, blackout even on social media-like even Michael Wolff didn’t discuss these revelations from the House Democrats much-nor did many of the youtubers who focus a lot on Epstein. So I finally did an Amazon search out of frustration of “Trump and Epstein” and came across this fascinating book in the first response:

“Jeffrey Epstein And Donald Trump 2025 Saga: The Secrets. The Files. The True Story Behind Epstein’s List. One Powerful Nation Under Systemic Blackmail”

The very first page had this story about how a mathematician named Eric Weinstein first met Epstein in 2003 and figured out immediately he was a fraud-in terms of being someone allegedly very knowledgeable regarding math and finance. 

Prologue: The Phone Call That Changed Everything

The conversation lasted less than five minutes, but its implications would reverberate through the highest levels of American power for the next two decades. Eric Weinstein, mathematician and managing director at Thiel Capital, hung up the phone in his Los Angeles office sometime in 2004, immediately dialing his wife. “I’ve just met a construct,” he told her, his voice carrying an unsettling certainty that would prove prophetic.

Jeffrey Epstein And Donald Trump 2025 Saga: The Secrets. The Files. The True Story Behind Epstein’s List. One Powerful Nation Under Systemic Blackmail – Kindle edition by Richard B. McCann, Joan Whitney Norah, Sophie Webb Williams. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Pg 5

It was like wow-right in the first paragraph: Thiel Capital. According to the documents released Thiel had been scheduled in Epstein’s planner to eat lunch with him on December 6, 2014 but this placed Epstein at a meeting with a mathematician named Eric Weinstein from Thiel Capital way back in 2004. Talk about a moment of serendipity.

It’s been noted by a number of people that there’s no evidence that Epstein was any kind of financial wunderkind-so how did he achieve his level of money and social connections?  But here we had someone who was knowledgeable of these topics:

“The meeting had taken place in Jeffrey Epstein’s palatial Manhattan townhouse on East 71st Street. Weinstein, a Harvard-educated physicist accustomed to the company of genuine intellectual titans, had expected to encounter the brilliant financial mind he’d heard whispered about in elite circles. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with what he would later describe as an elaborate performance—a billionaire who seemed to know remarkably little about the markets that supposedly made his fortune. That phone call marked the first recorded instance of someone penetrating Epstein’s carefully constructed facade.’

“While the world’s most powerful figures would continue flying to his private island and attending his Manhattan salons for another fifteen years, Weinstein had identified something far more sinister: Jeffrey Epstein was not who he claimed to be. The physicist’s instinct proved prescient. Two decades later, as Attorney General Pam Bondi stands before television cameras insisting that Epstein’s infamous “client list” never existed, and as FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino threatens resignation over the administration’s handling of the case, Weinstein’s early assessment looks less like paranoid speculation and more like the first glimpse behind the curtain of the most sophisticated intelligence operation ever conducted on American soil.”

This is the story of how a mathematical mind trained to detect patterns in chaos uncovered a truth that would shake the foundations of American democracy. It’s the story of how that truth was buried, protected, and ultimately weaponized by the very institutions sworn to defend the republic. And it’s the story of how, in July 2025, the weight of that deception finally threatened to crush the presidency of Donald Trump.”

Above we looked at the case of Destiny someone who is a very smart podcaster with very interesting content and in many ways a very incisive style who nevertheless falls into the all too typical trap of liberal institutionalist types to dismiss “conspiracy theories” as “outlandish”-for me it’s just the opposite these days I’m much more presupposed to believe “outlandish” theories than the more boring and sedate ones of Occam’s or Hanlon’s Razor. After all, what happened in 2016 with the way Comey and his FBI installed Trump just as the Republican Supreme Court installed W in 2000 were “outlandish” just as what Nixon did in 1968 in scuttling LBJ’s Vietnam peace talks or Reagan-Bush delaying the release of the Iran hostages in 1980 or Trump’s collusion with Russia in 2016-or Trump’s attempted coup and insurrection of 2020 or what I believe he and Netanyahu did in delaying a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza in 2024. Or for that matter what Greg Palast argues was done in the throwing in the trash of over one million provisional ballots. The truth is outlandish.

Destiny wrongly has argued the Epstein story is over but there is reason to believe it’s just getting started-we’ll have more to say about this below when we discuss the surprising aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. As the book quoted above argues at the end of the day the Epstein scandal is about our subverted democracy itself.

Eric Weinstein possessed the kind of analytical mind that governments both feared and coveted. His doctoral work at Harvard in mathematical physics had trained him to see patterns where others saw only noise, to detect the hidden structures underlying apparent chaos. By 2004, as managing director of Thiel Capital, he moved easily through Silicon Valley’s intellectual elite, comfortable in the presence of genuine brilliance. Which made his discomfort in Jeffrey Epstein’s presence all the more significant.”

Pg 8

It should be clear that my fairly copious quotes of Weinstein’s experience here is not an endorsement of everything he’s ever said and did-and he’s clearly a fascinating thinker who’s said and did a lot of things and involved himself in some pretty interesting scientific controversies regarding his criticism of “string theory” which remains the dominant paradigm of establishment physics to this day-it has been since about 1982 with Weinstein’s own countertheory of “Geometric Unity.”

He’s certainly also said some things I quite disagree with like his recent Piers Morgan where he excepted Piers’ false framing that there’s a huge epidemic of leftists who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s murder-again we’ll have a lot more to say about Kirk’s assassination and the aftermath below.

It’s pretty notable that Weinstein at least as of 2021 was still at Thiel Capital aka what I’d call the Belly of the Beast.

Eric Weinstein – Wikipedia

According to Wikipedia, Weinstein coined a term “the intellectual dark web”-the fact that Bari Weiss-the future President of CNN?- is a charter member doesn’t exactly recommend it for me.

“Weinstein coined the term “intellectual dark web“, later popularized by Bari Weiss, an opinion editor for The New York Times. The term has been applied to a loose network of public figures opposed to left-wing identity politics and political correctness.^[20

Section: The Intelligence Hypothesis

This is why the idea that Epstein was an intelligence operative has such resonance-it’s an educated guess as how else do you explain his level of wealth and access? Because Lex Wexner found him a charming dinner companion? That this is what the savvy, mainstream punditry would have us believe tell us a lot about the epistemological obfuscation they prefer to engage in as a matter of general practice it’s simply journalistic malpractice. And on Epstein-and far from only on this subject-they have abdicated their role preferring complacent access journalism.

Because if Epstein was not the financial genius he claimed to be then what was he? What explained his wealth and access?

“This recognition led to a darker question: if Epstein was not the financial genius he claimed to be, what was he? And more troubling still, who had created this elaborate persona, and why?”

As the meeting concluded and Weinstein made his way back to his hotel, he found himself grappling with implications that seemed almost too extraordinary to accept. The evidence suggested that Jeffrey Epstein was essentially an actor, someone who had been given a role to play and the resources necessary to play it convincingly. But actors required directors, and performances of this magnitude required institutional support. The phone call to his wife represented more than just a husband sharing his day’s experiences. It marked the birth of what would become known as the “construct hypothesis”—the theory that Jeffrey Epstein was not an independent operator but rather a creation of intelligence services, designed to infiltrate and compromise the highest levels of American and international power.

The hypothesis explained several puzzling aspects of Epstein’s operation that had troubled other observers. His vast wealth appeared disproportionate to any documented trading activity. His social connections seemed to transcend the usual boundaries that separated different spheres of influence. His ability to attract world leaders, celebrities, and intellectuals to his gatherings suggested access to resources and intelligence that no ordinary financier could possess.”

“But perhaps most telling was his apparent immunity from serious investigation. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, as rumors about Epstein’s activities circulated among those with access to elite circles, no major journalistic investigation had succeeded in penetrating his operation. No regulatory body had seriously questioned his trading activities. No law enforcement agency had examined his sources of wealth with the scrutiny typically applied to mysterious billionaires.”

“This pattern of protection suggested capabilities that went far beyond what any individual, however wealthy or well-connected, could reasonably command. It suggested institutional support, the kind of protection that only government agencies could provide.”

Starting on page 11

Exactly-The Intelligence Hypothesis has the convenience the only one that makes any sense of this fact pattern with Epstein.

“The construct hypothesis suggested that intelligence agencies had created and deployed a sophisticated honey trap operation targeting the highest levels of American society. It implied that many of the country’s most influential figures might be compromised, their private weaknesses cataloged. and potentially weaponized. It raised questions about which government was ultimately benefiting from this intelligence and whether American agencies were running the operation or merely tolerating it.”

Most disturbing of all, it suggested that the entire Epstein network—the private island, the Manhattan townhouse, the fleet of aircraft, the parade of underage victims—was not the work of a single predator but rather an organized intelligence operation using sexual exploitation as a tool of statecraft.”

Yes-this is the big picture. As terrible, awful, and unforgivable what was done to all of Epstein’s young female victims-which may number in the thousands the bigger picture is this is what Epstein as a tool of this organized intelligence operation has been doing to our democracy. This is why this is an issue that matters for all Americans it’s about the continued subversion of American democracy by this shady network of powerbrokers-that did not end with Epstein’s death to be sure.

The mathematician who had detected patterns in chaos had identified the most significant pattern of all: Jeffrey Epstein was not a person but a project, not a criminal but a construct, not an individual operator but an institutional creation designed to compromise and control the American elite. That realization, born in a Manhattan townhouse during an unsettling afternoon in 2004, would ultimately help explain how a democracy could find itself so thoroughly captured by forces it could neither identify nor confront.”

Pgs 13-14.

CODA: As we conjectured in the Prologue, there’s a very compelling argument that Israel was able to compromise Clinton via both Epstein and their espionage against Clinton’s government-a la MEGA which was not just one spy but a network of spies in the Oval Office-which is a pretty arresting example of members of the US elite being compromised and controlled.

What Epstein and his friends-starting first and foremost with Trump, his wingman for many years-was the rape of not just a thousand or more underage girls but American democracy.

Yet the official position of both the mainstream media and the Director of Trumpland the FBI is the updated version of J Edgar Hoover in the 1930s insisting there is no mafia.

Like Tucker Carlson-never thought I’d get a chance to quote him-said at what would be the last TPUSA rally in June before Charlike Kirk’s death-much more on him and the aftermath of his murder below-said maybe the mainstream narrative is correct and Epstein just made $165 million because he gave good tax advice.

(101) tucker carlson speech turning point 2025 – YouTube

Section The Deep State is Republican

Again for me 2016 was my radicalizing moment-I discussed this in Chapter Vote Harder-when I saw that what had happened with Bush v Gore was not an exception but the rule. This is why the idea that a powerful elite network of powerbrokers-in intelligence but also political leaders, and indeed as we saw with Bush v. Gore in the Judiciary-have been systemically subverting our democracy is not hard for me to believe-after all, to say it once again not that it can be said enough the FBI elected Trump.

So Trump is right about the Deep State what he fails to say is that it’s to a large extent dominated by Republicans in the US and at this point the Deep State serves his own interests more than anything.

Section: The Duopoly Canard

However another problem is the emphasis you often encounter on the idea that this is bipartisan shadow network. Perhaps though it’s notable that the entire Democratic party has voted again and again to release the Epstein files where just a handful of Republicans have been willing to. Beyond that inconvenient fact which no one acknowledges it’s clear that for many powerbrokers in this shadow network the Republican party is preferred even if there are also some Democrats in it. As even Whitney Webb acknowledged as we saw in the Prologue, the reason Israel might have wanted Epstein to compromise Democrats is that Republicans didn’t need to be they already didn’t support the two state solution.

It’s just clear in looking at the last 57 years of US politics-starting with when Nixon scuttled LBJ’s peace talks to end the Vietnam war-that ignoring the partisan dimension obfuscates much more than it illuminates. Note too that Israel has basically become a one party state-notably Labour dominated the first 29 years of Israel history but since then Likud has dominated particularly since Netanyahu basically got Yitzhak Rabin assassinated.

There’s a clear reactionary social agenda as well which the sort of vulgar Marxist analysis many leftists engage in misses. This is the problem with the notion that the Democrats should focus primarily on economic issues and not emphasize social issues too much is that many issues that White progressive Bro types tend to dismiss as mere social issues are also economic issues for marginalized groups hence the need for intersectional analysis. A classic example of this is abortion rights. We will discuss this towards the end of this Epilogue but for me what got under my skin the most of Kamala’s revelations in her recently published book is that Bernie urged her to remember the working class and not focus solely on abortion. Suffice it to say Bernie Bros like Vaush were wrong when they insisted Elizabeth Warren lied about Bernie.

This is the problem with focusing solely on economics-Vaush often states that the “capitalist class” doesn’t care either way about social issues- for awhile it was convenient for them to be “woke” now they’re “anti woke”-I don’t believe it’s simply random or “amoral.” There is a powerful reactionary agenda that desires-and to a large extent has already achieved-world wide autocracy cum Technofascism. Just consider Dobbs-I would argue there’s no more “fascist” policy than the forced birth “pro life” position. Similarly we see in the US and in much of the world the rollback of democracy and the embracing of many reactionary social policies. If you want to focus on the material interests of say Corporate America ok but perhaps they have an interest in a reactionary social agenda in terms of being in the interests of capital? But again I’m neither a Marxist nor an economic reductionist.

UPDATE: As Tara Palmieri’s guest who’s researched Epstein copiously anddone a lot of advocac for the Epstein victims points out that a sex trafficking ring who’s agenda is to entrap powerful politicans is nothing new-you have the Franklin Scandal then there was “Confessions of a Washington Madam” about a gay sex ring to entrap the powerful poiticians.

Parathetically Charles Johnson-who did so much to help Trump subvert5. the 2016 election-now says he left the Republican party but that he’s never seen more male homosexuality anywhere than inside the Republican party.

“No organization I have ever belonged to was as gay as the Republican Party and Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was no different.”

Thank You But I Will Remember My Friend Charlie Kirk As He Was Not As You Psyop Me Into

Rick Wilson and Tim Miller-who is of course gay himself- did a show earlier this year on this same topic. Suffice it to say there’s no truer cliche than the closeted gay conservative homophobe-Thiel for years fulminated against homosexuality before finally coming out himself and marrying his husband-yet never for one moment does he presumably consider how hard he and his Republican friends fought to forestall gay marriage from ever happening-or even that they’re trying again.

Speaking of Charlie Kirk:

Section: Orwell’s America: The Charlie Kirk Paradox of Reactionary Pluralism

It is self evident that what happened to Kirk on October 10 was a terrible tragedy. And that his murderer should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. At this point his killer is believed to be Tyler Robinson although as few other than ironically enough the Far Right Nazi Nick Fuentes Robinson is guilty until proven innocent.

Of course perhaps calling Fuentes is a thoughtcrime in the Orwellian cum Trumpian America of today particularly post Kirk’s assassination as the narrative from the earliest moments post his death was that Kirk was killed because liberals and leftists called him a Nazi. This epistemologically and morally viscous narrative was fomented by the Far Right without irony-as you would expect seeing as the Far Right has no sense of irony. After all Kirk was a major proponent of fuck your feelings, snowflake conservative agitprop who took delight in saying things that seemed calculated to maximalize how much he could offend or hurt the feelings of his presumed political opponents on the Left.

But very quickly Kirk, allegedly free speech’s strongest soldier was used a new assault by Trump and his Republican co-conspirators on the free speech of those who disagree with them culminating in the firiing of Jimmy Kimmel a move that spectacularly backfired on Trump as Disney backed down within a few days and brought Kimmel back who gave a searing return speech against Trump and his co-conspirators.

Still as Matthew Dowd accurately points out, MSNBC hasn’t brought him back in the network’s spectacular moment of moral cum journalistic cowardice in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s murder. The fact that neither Dowd or for that matter Kimmel even said anything terribly polemical or controversial underscores the kind of blank check Trump supposed Kirk’s murder gave him. This remains extremely worrisome as we’re far from out the woods yet. Notable too is this pretty flaccid narrative by folks like Nate Silver that “turn about is fair play”-ie Trump just did what the Left allegedly did in the 2014-2021 period when in reality while you could argue about some excesses-though the number have been greatly exaggerated-there has never been anything like the naked censorship that Trump and his FCC henchman Brendan Carr tried to take against Kimmel-“They can do this the easy way or the hard way”-even Ted Cruz made the obvious point that Carr sounded like mafia boss-while still arguing that he was glad Kimmel was gone which kind of undermines his point.

Section: Reactionary Pluralism: A Karl Popper Moment

What all this aftermath to Kirk’s assassination pointed out was that he was far from the Free Speech and Open Debate hero that not just the Far Right argued but even establishment liberals like Ezra Klein in his fairly terrible piece-“Charlie Kirk practiced politics the way it should be practiced.”

David Corn called out this problematic response in his Mother Jones article arguing that Kirk was NOT practicing politics in the right way.

In promoting a story on the murder of Kirk—headlined “Charlie Kirk killing deepens America’s violent spiral”—Axios described him as a “fierce champion of the right to free expression” whose “voice was silenced by an assassin’s bullet.” New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein, wrote, “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion.” Klein added that he “envied” the political movement Kirk built and praised “his moxie and fearlessness.”

Here’s the problem: Kirk built that movement with falsehoods. And his advocacy was laced with racist and bigoted statements. Recognizing this does not diminish the awfulness of this act of violence. Nor does it lessen our outrage or diminish our sympathy for his family, friends, and colleagues. Yet if this is an appropriate moment to assess Kirk and issue bold statements about his participation in America’s political life, there ought to be room for a true discussion.

No, Charlie Kirk Was Not Practicing Politics the Right Way – Mother Jones

Of course there’s the rub: Kirk’s legacy is said to be free and open debate even if others disagree or are offended yet the response to his death is to attempt to foreclose this free and open debate. As there’s been no dicussion of his actual legacy.

Popper discussed how in the time of the rise of Hitler the fascists and nazis were able to employ this same playbook. It was a pretty impressive use of Orwellian tactics-before Orwell. Orwellian before Orwell. What reactionaries would do in Hitler’s time they still do today-they claim that they are the true free speech heroes and heroes of pluralism while liberals are hypocrites who pretend to believe in free speech but don’t really. A classic and admittedly technically  impressive example of this spiel was Willam F Buckley’s God and Man at Yale.

Which is a complete and utter canard though it can be seductive for those who are uninformed-which alas remains much of the country-as we saw in 2024, informed voters voted for Harris, uninformed Trump.

Section: Liberal Pluralism for Me Reactionary Conservatism for Thee: a Chess Analogy

What’s tricky for liberals running against reactionary conservatives going back to the time of Burke himself-is that it can seem for the casual viewer that conservatives are more committed to free speech and open debate but this is because conservatives are able to work the refs and get a stacked deck-if liberals make any real or imagined deviation from their own professed values they shriek to the heavens but then when the shoe is on the other foot conservatives don’t even pretend to hold to liberal values-‘what do you want from me I don’t believe in liberal pluralism but you do so for you not to adhere to it is hypocritical. I’m no hypocrite I don’t believe in pluralism or tolerance.

FN: See Cory Robin’s fascinating book “The Reactionary Mind”

This is why the chess analogy is very apt in describing what it’s like for liberals to run against reactionaries. Masha Gessen in 2016 noted that while Trump was like someone playing a game of chess who wasn’t playing chess but throwing the pieces off the board the media would insist on interpreting this as him simply being unorthodox.

As an online chess player myself I would call my own play unorthodox-my favorite position is the King’s Gambit. Throwing pieces around the room isn’t unorthodox it’s throwing pieces around the room.

But then conservatives whine that the media is liberal as they’re correcting them much more than liberals. But then way back after the 1988 election Kathleeen Hall Jamieson had noted that while it felt strange to correct Republicans so much more the truth is Republicans lied a lot more than the Democrats-the Dems would generally at least try to get it right.

Packaging The Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising, 3rd Edition: Jamieson, Kathleen Hall: 9780195089424: Amazon.com: Books

But this is what it’s like to “play chess” with reactionaries: they can do whatever they want-on any particular move they might throw the board on the ground-if they’re losing, or maybe they just throw a few pieces off the board. On other moves they might simply do an illegal move-but you better not correct them or that’s censorship!-or when it’s convenient for them they might even do a legal move-on those rare moments they have a good legal move.

Liberals OTOH are consigned to legal moves and sometimes reactionaries will even falsely claim legal liberal moves are illegal ones-like when the Clinton campaign funded part of the Steele Dossier in 2016-not even campaign but a lawyer in the campaign.

CODA: Taylor Lorenz is Exhibit One of why I hate the Left and they are often worse than useless allies for liberals where she did much the same making a great deal of heavy weather of funding sources for some liberal youtubers that weren’t’ only perfectly legal but perfectly ethical and above board. Even leftists that I’ve come to like and respect like Kyle Kulinski fell into this quicksand. Often this is what leftists do-while liberals are being mugged by conservative reactionaries the leftist are like ‘you know why DID you where that shirt today, it’s not someting a True Progressive should wear.’

But Ezra Klein completely misses this and instead falls for the canard of reactionary pluralism and praises Kirk for all his illegal chess moves.

CODA: Not sure what Klein is up to lately-he did write what I think is a pretty good and important book, while we can debate the why it’s a fact that liberal Democrats like us who are the party of government need to achieve good outcomes. Now there’s criticism of the book that I think has a point-he focuses on the idea that regulations are a big problem and while there are some variations of what you might call nimbyism-something I’ve certainly never been a fan of-it’s arguable there are other facts like the power of Corporate America and it’s delbierate obstruction he gives short thrift to.

But then he does completely indefensible things like propose we throw Red State women under the bus regarding abortion rights. What’s ironic is while Taneshi Coates is as he himself admits not a political strategist-he’s more if anything of a kind of moral suasionist-his political calculus here was better than Klein’s-what is it that makes Klein think that the reason-allegedly-there are many parts of America that believe Democrats “don’t ike them”-is because they support abortion rights?  As Coates correctly points out these red states actually voted for abortoin referendums whle voting for Trump at the top of the ticket. So whatever the reason for this it’s not that the Democrats need to give up pushing abortion rights too hard-at a time like this in the era of Dobbs where a 13 year old rape victim has fewer rights than her rapist in red states this is morally obscene just as it was for Bernie to marginalize both abortion rights and women in his message to Kamala Harris. What this shows though is that both the Center and the Left seem eager to throw women under the bus a time so many are being victimized by these morally viscous laws. We’ll discuss this more below but after Caotes pointed this out to Klein he tried to handwave the point away by saying abortoin might not be the best example-well then why did he use it? I saw Sam Seder say abortion was a terrible choice perhaps it should have been gun control or immigration. Uh-why? This is a problem where the Democrats wrongly believe the GOP has won some kind of policy debate-rather than they’ve mastered rigging the game.  Like the reason Congress isn’t dominated by the Democrats as it was between the time FDR won in 1932 and 1994 is largely because the GOP mastered the art of gerrymandering. But clearly Klein seems to think they did win some kind of grand policy debate.

I’m not in principle arguing that the Democrats should not welcome a “pro life” Democrat if they win-much like they should all be welcoming Mamdani though many have not though he won-as the numbers in terms of Congressonal math are paramount. But if we did have more “pro life”-sorry I can’t use this phrase without scare quotes as I have such disdain for this entire premise-Dems in Congress would this mean the party wouldn’t try to recodify Roe? Not that there’s much evidence they are currently anyway

But this is what institutional liberals utterly fail to grapple with. Folks like Klein show it’s literally the opposite-Klein if you take him at his word seems to believe that the GOP has won some great policy debate- a la Hans Niemann-yes I use his name deliberately as he himself has a history of cheating…

Hopefully it’s clear that the cheating analogy is anything but too strong as David Corn documents:

Kirk, a right-wing provocateur who founded and led Turning Point USA, an organization of young conservatives, was a promoter of Trump’s destructive and baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Two days before the January 6 riot, Kirk boasted in a tweet that Students for Trump and Turning Point Action were “Sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.”

After the attack, Kirk deleted the tweet, and he claimed that the people his group transported to DC participated only in the rally that occurred before the assault on Congress—where Trump whipped up the crowd and encouraged it to march on the Capitol. The New York Times subsequently reported that Turning Point Action sent only seven buses to the event. Turning Point also paid the $60,000 speaking fee to Kimberly Guilfoyle, a MAGA personality, for the brief remarks she made at the rally. “We will not allow the liberals and the Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections,” Guilfoyle told the crowd. (Kirk took the Fifth when he was deposed by the House January 6 committee.)

Even prior to the election, Kirk helped set the stage for Trump’s attempt to subvert the republic. In September 2020, the Washington Post reported that Turning Point Action was running a “sprawling yet secretive campaign” to disseminate pro-Trump propaganda “that experts say evades the guardrails put in place by social media companies to limit online disinformation of the sort used by Russia during the 2016 campaign.” The messages Turning Point generated spread the charge that Democrats were using mail balloting to steal the election and downplayed the threat from Covid. (Kirk’s group called the story a “gross mischaracterization.”)

Whatever Kirk’s group and supporters did on January 6, he was part of the MAGA crusade that largely broke US politics. Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 loss, his conniving to stay in power, and his encouragement of a lie that led to massive political violence greatly undermined American democracy and exacerbated the already deep divide in the nation. Kirk was a part of that. Yet Klein overlooks that in praising Kirk. And a New York Times piece on Kirk’s political career made no mention of this, though it did report that he had been “accused” of “antisemitism, homophobia and racism, having blamed Jewish communities for fomenting hatred against white people, criticized gay rights on religious grounds and questioned the qualifications of Black airline pilots.”

Pretty hard to wrap yourself in the bloody shirt of Popper’s Open Society and free and fair debate while subverting free and fair elections the most basic unit of the Open Society.

Kirk’s advocacy of vigorous debate ought not be separated from what he said while jousting in the public square. He hosted white nationalists on his podcast. He posted racist comments on his X account, including this remark: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” He endorsed the white “replacement” conspiracy theory. After the October 7 attack on Israel, he compared Black Lives Matter to Hamas. He called for preserving “white demographics in America.” He asserted that Islam was not compatible with Western culture. He derided women who supported Kamala Harris 2024 for wanting “careerism, consumerism, and loneliness.” Or, as he also put it, “Democratic women want to die alone without children.” When Paul Pelosi, the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, was brutally attacked in 2022, Kirk spread a conspiracy theory about the crime and called for an “amazing patriot” to bail out the assailant. He routinely deployed extreme rhetoric to demonize his political foes.”

The fact that he wanted to bail out the person who brutally attacked Pelosi’s husband-damaging him physically for life should give you more than a little pause in this rush to make him a Free Speech martyr.

He cheered and endorsed political violence and Trump’s long running coup that led to the J6 insurrection. It’s pretty hard to be a free speech martyr while celebrating violence and conspiring to overturn a Presidential election-about as fundamental as you can get in Popper’s “Open Society.”

Section: Israel, Israel, Israel: The Post Charlie Kirk War Over HIs Legacy Centers Around His Legacy

Overall much of the aftermath of Kirk’s tragic murder has been pretty predictable-Trump and his GOP co-conspirators have used it as an excuse for the kind of draconian crackdown on the alleged values Kirk championed that would have made McCarthy himself blush while institutionalist liberals a la Ezra Klein negotiate against themselves while falling over themselves to make sure they too ostentatiously glaze someone who did not represent free speech, open debate, or general political pluralism quite the opposite-underscored dramatically by his celebrating of insurrection and political violence and the way the Right has attempted to weaponize it. Then there is the gaslighting by Trump-Vance and friends that all violence is from the Left which is false and vicious indeed the opposite of the truth-most political violence in recent years has come from the Right as has been documented many times.

I  mean I don’t get it-JD Vance says 98% of all political violence comes from the Left-maybe the judge had a gay lover?

Judge Diane Goodstein’s home burns to ground after ruling against Trump

Indeed, Vance who once-correctly-called Trump is now talking about arresting Destiny so guess takes one to know one.

JD VANCE TRIED TO ARREST DESTINY FOR ‘PREACHING VIOLENCE’ | The Kyle Kulinski Show

As Kyle points out there are three major cases of MAGA violence the last few weeks-including the MAGA kid who ran over three teenage girls with his car for making a joke about Charlie Kirk and the burning down of a judge’s house after she ruled against Trump.

Again Kirk himself was a pretty prolific preacher of violence in his own right with his talk of driving the J6ers to the insurrection and paying for the bail of the Trump supporter who beat in Pelosi’s husband’s head with a hammer.

Section: They Didn’t Wait a Day

Those who wrongly think Vance is “anti war” though I guess according to Max Blumenthal’s weird calculus-where Putin is the anti war guy while those who want to help Ukraine are the “warmongers”-much more on Blumenthal below-apparently are ignorant of his stated desire for the “de Baathification of America.”

That’s a pretty interesting desire considering Vance claims that he was totally opposed to the Iraq War.

But speaking of the Iraq War, Richard Clarke revealed how les than a day after 9/11 W and Cheney and Friends were already making plans to invade Iraq and similarly Trump and his Russia House hacks didn’t wait a day to start using Kirk’s assassination for a massive crackdown on free speech-again Kirk was the alleged free speech champion.

‘They Need to Suffer’: Inside Trump’s War on Dissent

However there are other aspects of the aftermath I did not see coming. I had assumed for instance that it might lead to short term unity among MAGA and that while I disagreed with Destiny that the Epstein scandal is done I assumed that at least in the short term Kirk’s death might sideline it. Instead if anything it opened up a new track for Epstein. But more below.

When I first came across Blumenthal’s Grayzone piece arguing just that I was skeptical to say the least-Owens then picked this story up and ran with it fomenting the idea amongst a number of MAGA folks that Israel might have killed Kirk. But for me none of it passed the laugh test. Kirk had a long history of being Israel’s strongest soldier-outside of probably Ben Shapiro. So when Blumenthal published his first of what would be three pieces-so far-about Kirk allegedly having second thoughts it struck me as not passing the laugh test.

After all I was never a big fan of Kirk to say the least-other than he was a virulent misogynist, racist, raging homophobe who sought to glamourize bigotry he was fine and was never exactly a fan of Max Blumenthal either. I kind of took this as yet more of the kind of gaslighting stuff that he and some of his co-conspirators like his co-host Aaron Mate and Jimmy Dore as part of his alleged “Left Right alliance.”  Vaush actually had some really good take downs of this kind of shtick-like when Jimmy Dore argued that progressives should partner up with members of the KKK to raise the minimum wage drawing the analogy of the Malcolm X meeting with the KKK. I mean the meeting between MX and the KKK wasn’t exactly something worth celebrating-the elevated premise being that Black Separatists and White Supremacists share the aim of defeating racial integration?

Jimmy Dore & Caleb Maupin UNMASK The Breadtube CIA Partnership

Covering the Kyle Kulinski vs. Jimmy Dore vs. TYT Drama

I’m all for raising the MW but is it really necessary to have a beer with David Duke to make it happen? Dore is willing to have a beer with the Grand Wizard of the KKK yet not Hillary Clinton-in fact he was infamously “Bernie or Bust” in 2016. Talk about not aging well!

FULL DEBATE: Jimmy Dore & Sam Seder on 2016 Presidential Election

CODA: A classic Jimmy Dore moment was when he was laughing about that time he was sexually harassed Ana Kasparian-“nice work skirt” back when he used to work on The young Turks and according to him “everyone was laughing”. Then all of a sudden Max Blumenthal’s face fills the screen looking extremely off balance and embarrassed his face crimson. Blumenthal regularly did the show back then.

Starting at 7:23

(95) Jimmy Dore LAUGHS As He Admits To Sexually Harassing Ana Kasparian – YouTube

Vaush’s early critiques of Dore, Blumenthal, and others weren’t just ideological—they were epistemological interventions. He called out the drift from material progressivism to contrarian nihilism. In principle Blumenthal’s Left-Right alliance has things exactly backward-the optimal alliance for those who seek a more progressive future is ironically where Kyle Kulinski-ironic as Kyle himself was “Bernie or Bust” in 2020-here in 2025 Kyle has been perhaps the lead advocate on the Left of a liberal-leftist alliance.

Honestly it goes beyond not being a big fan of Blumenthal-he’s said and done some pretty morally perverse things the last 10 years-like slandering the families of all the Syrian people who lost loved ones in Assad’s chemical attack at Douma.

Daphne Lawless had a pretty succinct takedown of the reprehensible Assadist propaganda of Blumenthal-Aaron Mate-Jimmy Dore et al.

It’s common sense in liberal and Left circles that ideas like “9/11 Truth”, the theories that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was forged, or that the victims of the Sandy Hook or Parkland school shootings were “crisis actors”, are wild fantasies either made up by the bigoted and ill-informed to justify their prejudices, or else false narratives being deliberately fed to such people (for profit or political gain) by unscrupulous media operatives such as FOX News or Alex Jones’ InfoWars. We are appalled when parents of school shooting victims are harassed by unhinged strangers calling them conspiracy operatives and telling them that their dead children never existed.

And yet this is precisely what much of the Western Left has been doing to the people whose children died of chlorine poisoning in the basements of Douma, Syria. Experienced Western journalist Robert Fisk even took a trip to Douma – courtesy of the Syrian government – to find an anonymous doctor who would confirm such fantasies. This, while actual Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors were still barred from the site, so that the regime and its allies could make the evidence disappear.”

As this book makes clear I certainly don’t agree that false flags never happen but it’s true that what Blumenthal-Mate-Dore and Friends did in Douma was reprehensible and very like Jones’ Sandy Hook lies.

It’s established that Mate and Jimm Dore received money from an Assadist linked group- and Blumenthal also received an award from them.

Pro-Assad Lobby Group Rewards Bloggers On Both The Left And The Right – bellingcat

Indeed Mate had such a hard on for Assad cum Putin that he testified at the UN on behalf of Russia to foment the lies they were telling about the Douma chemical attack-as Lawless said basically accusing the families of the victims of either being crisis actors or maybe perpetuating the chemical attack themselves-ie murdering their own children just to like about the innocent Assad.

We’ll look at this more below but suffice it to say the Syrian civil war became ground zero for Putin’s disinformation war against the US-a war that has alas been very successful likely beyond his wildest dream and Blumenthal and his Tankie friends were his strongest soldiers.

Section: Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal Have the World’s Funniest Breakup and Norton Reveals Blumenthal Donated to MAGA Candidates After Engaging in anti Vaxxer Denialism

If you haven’t seen this video-that Blumenthal himself linked to-you need to see it if you really want a big laugh.

Max Blumenthal on X: “After Ben violated the terms of our mediation agreement, I decided to break my silence about his deceptions and financial crimes. But I waited for an opportunity to hold him personally accountable. When I and Anya Parampil confronted Ben about his crimes during a visit to https://t.co/Vm1uxNQqqz” / X

It’s amazing that Max is the one who released thinking this somehow makes himself look good?! But it is tremendous comic relief. Blumenthal followed him all the way down to Nicaragua to confront him on a train-Norton was sitting with his girlfriend and twin brother.

‘you’re a white color criminal! you stole from me!’

According to Norton, Blumenthal and his wife now have Tucker Carlson over for dinner regularly.

GRAYZONE DRAMA – Max Blumenthal Makes INSANE ALLEGATIONS Against Ben Norton

Blumenthal also accused Norton of “computer crimes” which is ironic-he falsely accuses the idealistic Ben Norton of computer crimes while denying the computer crimes Russia and its cutouts committed against Clinton and the United States in 2016

Just like his fellow tankie freind  and credibly accused sexual harasser Jimmy Dore is willing to ally with David Duke to raise the mininum wage but not Hillary Clinton who had proposed raising it to $12 in the primary and after sitting down with Bernie agreed to raise it to $15.

CODA: While Bernie or Busters a la Blumenthal-Dore and Friends-even alas Kyle though he seems to now see the error in his ways-denounced Clinton as a “corporate shill” for offering $12 what would you do now for a $12 MW in the parts of the country-the parts who voted for Trump- still stuck at $7.25?

No matter how you look at it Blumenthal is a charter member of what Kyle would come to call “The Bernie to Trump Pipeline” and his Grayzone project has largely groomed the Left into drifting away from any kind of positive progressive agenda that improves the material conditions of the working class cum struggling middle class to political and moral nihilism cum Doomerism.

Or for that matter Blumenthal is willing to believe Cambridge Analytica did a surveillance program for yemen but not that it also worked with Israel, and the Trump campaign-via the Mercers AND Steve Bannon who technically was Alexnader Nix’s boss in 2015. But much more on his first of all convenient denial of the self evident fact that Russia interferred and colluded with Trump in 2016.

Max Blumenthal Reveals Surveillance Program in Yemen Run by Cambridge Analytica Parent Company SCL

Indeed we see that per his estranged former partner Norton Blumenthal himself completed this pipeline supporting MAGA candidates and he and his wife had Tucker Carlson over regularly for dinner. It’s not hard to see why Carlson was down to befriend a member of the Far Left-it clearly benefits MAGA. As I discussed in a previous chapter the conservative base is smaller than the progressive base so the only way it can win is to split the progressive base-a la the Bernie Busters in 2016-that Blumenthal and Dore came out of.

Nevertheless this was a time when Carlson begun changing his political narrative a little notably he became far more critical of Israel whereas he used to have the orthodox Christian Zionist position of the GOP just as he’s gone from Bush’s strongest soldier in cheerleading the Iraq war to apparently becoming a 9/11 Truther-I say “appearing” intentionally with Carlson who ever really knows if things appear with him? I’ve tended to dismiss Carlson’s apparent change on this issues as a clever trick to groom the Max Blumenthals of the world and I still believe this. However this whole aftermath on Charlie Kirk has made me see another dimension to this of which more below.

Anyway back to Blumenthal’s hilarious breakup with Ben Norton. Norton’s version of events seems to have the inconvenience of being true-Blumenthal vindictively sued him  for removing his own content after he left the Grayzone and told the truth about him-Blumenthal constantly lies.

(2) Citizen By X on X: “Are you allowed to laugh on X when the tankies fight among themselves? Here’s Ben Norton, very obviously former Greyzone hack, going after Max Blumenthal. Will there be a cage fight? https://t.co/7DGf8YxLAb” / X

Citizen By X on X: “Are you allowed to laugh on X when the tankies fight among themselves? Here’s Ben Norton, very obviously former Greyzone hack, going after Max Blumenthal. Will there be a cage fight? https://t.co/7DGf8YxLAb” / X

Norton also confirms that Blumenthal did a Far Right turn joining the anti vax hysteria during Covid using the Grayzone to funnel lies into the national bloostream.

Again Charlie Kirk’s murder was tragic but the canonization of him is deeply worrisome. I’m also hardly a fan of Blumenthal as his legacy on our politics has been very negative-he’s basically been grooming the Left into seeing Far Right wing extremists as “acceptable conversational partners” as the Pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty would put while demonizing Center Left liberals as “corporate shills”, etc. To be sure as we discussed in Chapter The Making of a Conspiracy Theorist, there’s a long history of the Left preferring the Far Right to the Center Left liberals for alliances going back to when Stalin’s Communist party-that ran the International told leftists-Marxists, socialists, Communists, et al-not to vote for the Social Democrats as “they’re social fascists”-ie no better than the fascists and Nazis who supported Hitler.

I mean anti vax anti lockdown trutherism is a far cry from working to materially improve the lives of the working class as is supposed to be the agenda of Marxism-I’m not a Marxist to be sure but a reformist liberal but I would construe my goal that way-to materially improve the lives of the struggling working class and frustrated middle class as any genuine progressive would.

OTOH Blumenthal, Dore, Jackson Hinkle, et al-have lead the Left down a rabbit hole of political and moral nihilism-again no wonder Tucker Carlson embraced folks like Blumenthal and Gleen Greenwald-who claims Carlson is a socialist-uh, sure-as was Hitler and Goebbels.

Having said all this I’ve been quite fascinated by Blumenthal’s recent reporting about Kirk allegedly having second thoughts about supporting Israel. Initially my instinct was to rule this out of hand as it seemed not to pass the laugh test.

After all. Kirk has a long verifiable history as Israel’s strongest solider other than maybe Ben Shaprio as well as a long history of the most despicable and reprehensible Islamaphobia. Recall his “joke” about Gaza being levelled to the ground-“Too soon?”

He then followed up this knee slapper with “Stupid Muslims don’t kill Jews.”

(114) Charlie Kirk 35:07 Gays should be thrown off tall buildings in Gaza…stupid Muslims – YouTube

Starting at about 35:0788

Again it can’t be over emphasized how hideous Kirk’s views were-again that doesn’t mean his murder wasn’t a tragedy all his death has done is make him a martyr-he shouldn’t have been assassinated but it’s horrendous for him to be lionized. This is a guy who says he’d make his 10 year old daughter bear her rapist’s child. That is simply monstrous-all the more to the extent it’s true.

Some of Charlie Kirk’s most controversial takes | CBC News

Then again I guess Joe Kent the MAGA candidate Blumenthal supported would say the same thing-of course Cenk would say “let’s have some beers!”

Just shows how much of the alleged dude bros of the Left care about women’s rights-like the old song about war goes “absolutely nothing.”

This highlights why I find Blumenthal’s alleged strategy so hideous-it’s like a GOP candidate can claim to be “anti war” in some general non specific sense so all this other hideous positions-like forced birth “prolife” as well as destroying Medicare and SS-as well now tanks in the streets and helicopters swooping down on low income residents and randomly grabbing them and stuffing them into a van-but hey, this one candidate said he’s anti war and that makes it worth it? And often their definition of anti war is in the same Orwellian way Blumenthal has used it-the “war monger” position isn’t Putin’s according to him but the US for simply giving weapons for Ukraine to defend itself.

In any case back to Blumenthal’s articles asserting that Kirk had maybe had second thoughts about Israel I intiitally ruled it out of hand. Again Candace Owens had taken it even further to fomenting the possibility Mossad killed Kirk. This again seemed absurd as he was a great supporter of Israel  and his organization, TPUSA, had depended on so much financial support from Zionists in the Republican party.

What started to really get me to thinking though was when Netanyahu felt compelled to deny Israel had killed Kirk. I mean-what?! This is Benjamin Netanyahu he doesn’t feel compelled to deny or refute anything just handwave it away and keep up his merciless slaughter of Palestinian women and children. Consider that after October 7 he didn’t even speak to the Israeli public for over a week in fact Biden spoke to them first. For many months Biden was calling on him to do a ceasefire, a hostage deal, or even allow the food trucks to reenter Gaza and Netanyahu didn’t feel compelled to justify his continued intransigence.

CODA: Indeed even now after he supposedly accepted a ceasefire that Trump declared, he still continued bombing Gaza to oblivion killing more Palestinian children.

Max Blumenthal on X: “Trump told Israel to stop bombing Gaza Israel continued and even escalated the bombing because it knows he’s firmly under their thumb” / X

yet he did feel the need to give this kind of almost State of the Union style address denying the rumors and expressing great love for Charlie Kirk. No I don’t think Israel killed him. However what I began to realize was that there was a serious fissure within Kirk’s TPUSA and it was around primarily too things: Israel and Epstein which relates to Israel as he’s widely seen-rightly I believe-as having deep ties to Mossad. And it’s hard to make the argument that Israel is in principle opposed to political assassination with its track record.

CODA: Israel is the undisputed king of the political assination of foreign officials going back to before the state of Israel-recall all the British officials the Far Right Zionists killed then there was the murder of that Danish member of the UN who opposed the founding of Israel. Russia’s superpower on the other hand is the assainsation of their own alleged “subversives” on foreign soil going back of course to Trotsky. Putin OTOH has led a number of such assassinations.

List of Russian assassinations – Wikipedia

While Israel’s thing is to assassinate foreign political actors it finds inconvenient Russia’s thing is to kill Russian nationals on foreign soil so both have their own particular brand of brazen sociopathy.

FWIW  Max Blumenthal’s pal Putin declares the assassination of Charlie Kirk “a disgusting atrocity” that points to “a deep rift in American society.

Putin says Charlie Kirk’s ‘disgusting’ murder is proof of a ‘deep rift’ in America

Well Putin IS an expert on atrocities to be sure-though Blumenthal is ok with atrocities against schools and hospitals when Russia or Assad rather than Israel does it-and he’s kind of an expert on deep rifts in American society as he and his useful idiot Max Blumenthal have done so much to foment these rifts.

Again I never understand how you can support Russia’s genocide while condemning Israel’s like Max and his Tankie Friends do OR for that matter vice versa as admittedly some liberal Zionist types do. When Biden tried to link Ukraine aid to Israel’s in late 2023 it made some sense I suppose tactically-in the hope this would entice the GOP which had turned on Ukraine to vote for it if tied to Isreal though even this didn’t work as they just refused to do either but because Israel gets special rights at all times so Biden kept sending weapons to Israel during the impasse while Ukraine’s were paused.

But obviously as neither Bide OR BLUMENTHAL seemed to perceive the correct analogy for Israel isn’t Ukraine but Russia-indeed Israel was one of the few countries allegedly in the Western bloc which declined to condemn Russia’s brutal invasion and understandably so. This just shows Israel at least does a little introspection.

But of course Blumenthal claims Putin is the pacifist in the situation-the “anti war” position here is to not help Ukraine defend itself. Right just like for years before WWII the “anti war” position was letting Hitler take whatever he wanted-don’t defend Poland he’ll stop there. Similarly Blumenthal, Hasan and the “realist” hack Mearsheimer were wrong all along first Putin would never invade then he’d win in 48 hours then Ukraine should just surrender 40% of its country then it was well who cares because Putin says Ukrainians are all Nazis-one of Blumenthal’s favorite slanders using the same tactic Netanyahu uses-then it was he only wanted Crimea then it was well anyway he has no ambitions beyond Ukraine now we see Putin sending drones into Poland and Romania. Maybe this is why Sweden and Finland joined NATO-Sweden and Finland! I guess Blumenthal and “contrarian hacks” like Mike Tracey think Neville Chamberlain had it right all along.

Just this last weekend Israel once again underscored its brazenness in what it did to Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg mistreated by Israeli forces in detention, activists say | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

The Grayzone on X: “Flotilla activist slams Mike Huckabee for mocking Greta Thunberg, who’s currently in an Israeli prison and enduring abuse at the hands of her occupation jailers Human rights lawyer and journalist Thomas Becker says Huckabee has signaled that Israel can abuse activists at will https://t.co/dRoVN0omq8” / X

Huckabee was very much in character to be sure-he was Governor of Arkansas in the 1990s and locked Susan McDougal in an Arkansas prison-as we documented elsewhere Ken Starr-who just happened to be Epstein’s defense attorney-along with Dershowitz-an alleged “life long Democrat” who’s campaigning for Republicans in 2026″ he’s a Democrat in the sense that Bari “we are all fascists now” Weiss is a liberal.

Opinion | We’re All Fascists Now – The New York Times

Weiss claimed she had to quit the Times-the same Times who colluded with James Comey to elect Trump in the first place-because she was being “constantly bullied” where her definition of “bullied” means being criticized for publishing Senator Tom Cotton’s fascist screed to ban pro Palestine protesters out of the country.

Well she did say “we are all fascists now” and clearly she meant it.

Meet Bari Weiss, the controversial political journalist who resigned from The New York Times – accusing staff of ‘constant bullying’ – and co-founded The Free Press with her wife, Nellie Bowles | South China Morning Post

She’s heralded for having “won the war on wokeness”-apparently “wokeness” means thinking that fascism is maybe not such a great thing and that someone shouldn’t be deported just because you disagree with them. Judging by the antics of Trump’s hacks like Pete Hegseth it turns out that “wokeness” means basic civil rights we as a country had agreed to going back to when LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act. Now that the “social liberal” Bari Weiss and Donald Trump have “defeated Wokeness” it’s ok to fire someone because they’re you know-Black or a woman, or clearly if they’re LGBT though this seems not to bother the lesbian Weiss who’s married to a woman just like tens of millions of women voted for Trump despite also voting for abortion rights referendums. Self-awareness is not exactly in large supply in George Orwell’s Donald Trump’s America.

Bari Weiss Has Won the War on Wokeness in Media

As for Dershowitz I mean I know his story is that he’s a life long Democrat but to believe this I’d have to see his voter rolls to believe it-hey he doesn’t flinch when Trump wants to see the rolls of tens of millions of Americans. I mean I’m sure Dersh is as much a lifelong Democrat in the same way that Jonthan Turley-who wanted to impeach Pelosi for ripping up Trump’s State of the Union Speech is.

Dersh whines that he’s “never been so frightened in my life” and that “the Democratic party has made me an enemy”

‘They Have Made Me An Enemy’: Alan Dershowitz Skewers Democrat Party, Pledges To Back GOP In 2026 | The Daily Caller

I mean you weren’t an enemy in 2019 when you were Trump’s defense attorney at his impeachment and claimed Trump has absolute immunity so long he in his own mind acted in the national interest? What’s notable is even though he did defend Clinton in 1998, it was a much more qualified and equivocal defense than his defense of Trump the last eight years. He did an awful lot of finger wagging over Lewinsky which is rich with the accusations against him on Epstein’s island not to mention his buddy Trump. I mean he’s been an enemy of the Democratic party far longer than the present moment.

CODA: In light of my theory that Epstein was sent by Israel to entrap Clinton I wonder if he himself had intel from Israel about Lewinsky back in 1997

Indeed back to Blumenthal-Kirk et al. While I despise Blumenthal’s role in the rise of Trump and he’s had a significant role which we’ll look at in more detail below and a lot to answer for in all the gaslighting he’s helped perpetuate against the working class he as a privileged trust fund baby pretends to care about-sad thing is people mock him when they discover who his father was but I’d argue that his father did more positive things for society than him or at least did less harm-OTOH I WAS totally there for his brutal takedown of Dersh on the recent Piers Morgan episode-as he called him out as a Epstein hack to his face and his placing of a foreign country above the American national interest. Though of course Blumenthal has also betrayed America for his own preferred foriegn country-Russia. Don’t worry we’ll have some receipts below in response to the inevitable facile denials “nu uh! Russia is a hoax…”

While I think Blumenthal’s Left Right alliance is fatally misconceived and has led to the moral and political nihilism of the Left what his machinations have done apparently is give him some primo sources within the belly of the beast-the Trump Russia House. Not surprising that some top Trump sources were willing to speak to him after all he’s part of the Tanike Left who hates his dad’s friend Hillary Clinton far more than they could ever hate Donald Trump. Even though if Comey and Russia hadn’t stolen the election from her, at least we wouldn’t live in a country where a 13 year old rape victim has less rights than her rapist-though as we saw above Kirk without blinking said even his 10 year old daughter was raped “we’d be keeping the baby” I wonder what he’d say if her life was endangered-probably the exact same thing. But of course Blumenthal himself and fellow dude bro leftist don’t much care if 10 year old girls are forced to bear their rapists’ child or if they die in pregnancy-what’s that compared to making sure THAT WOMAN never gets to be President?

But let’s look at Blumenthal’s fascinating work in the Kirk aftermath. While it might be fruits of the poisoned tree they are none the less very impressive and important fruits.

“Charlie Kirk refused Netanyahu funding offer, was ‘frightened’ by pro-Israel forces before death, friend reveals.”

Charlie Kirk refused Netanyahu funding offer, was ‘frightened’ by pro-Israel forces before death, friend reveals – The Grayzone

This was the first drop just two days after Kirk’s death. It caused an immediate stir after Candace Owens did a show that centered the allegations. Again I was skeptical initially that Kirk was really having second thoughts.

A Trump insider and longtime friend of Charlie Kirk tells The Grayzone how the assassinated conservative leader’s turning point on Israeli influence provoked a private backlash from Netanyahu’s allies that left him angry and afraid.

“The source said anxiety spread within the Trump administration after an apparent Israeli spying operation was uncovered.”

“The source said anxiety spread within the Trump administration after an apparent Israeli spying operation was uncovered.”

Still when you think about it’s not exactly out of character for Israel to be caught spying on its alleged top ally-we talked about the mole in the Clinton WH a la MEGA which turned out to be not one spy but an entire network of spies within the WH which had information about Lewinsky in 1997 before even Ken Starr and the Clinton hating Louis Freeh did. Israel would then dictate that the FBI drop it’s investigation into MEGA and the FBI capitulated though you suspect Freeh didn’t find this too difficult as they had dirt to destroy Clinton with.

In 2019 again during Trump 1.0 there was another spy operation of Russia House 1.0.

Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House – POLITICO

Indeed, Blumenthal would reference Boris Johnson’s revelation in his autobiography that according to himself Netanyahu planted a listening device in Johnson’s private bathroom when he visited England. The point is it goes to pattern-which was another reason I tended to believe Russian Collusion indeed happened early on-there’s a long pattern of the GOP colluding with hostile foreign powers to win Presidential elections going back to Nixon 1968.

CF: SPY TRADE: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy – Kindle edition by Smith, Grant F., Scheuer, Michael. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Similarly while mainstream pundits-they don’t deserve the title “journalist”-would dismiss this kind of talk as “outlandish” as if the truth in Trump’s America isn’t beyond “outlandish”-outlandish is almost not strong enough a term. So aside from Kirk’s alleged evolving position on Israel the notion that Israel was bugging the Trump Russia House is the opposite of implausible.

Charlie Kirk rejected an offer earlier this year from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to arrange a massive new infusion of Zionist money into his Turning Point USA (TPUSA) organization, America’s largest conservative youth association, according to a longtime friend of the slain commentator speaking on the condition of anonymity. The source told The Grayzone that the late pro-Trump influencer believed Netanyahu was trying to cow him into silence as he began to publicly question Israel’s overwhelming influence in Washington and demanded more space to criticize it.”

I understand the need to protect sources though I’m also fascinated by who the source is. It must be a primo source within the Trump Russia House-I’m assuming Blumenthal isn’t just making it up. One reason I don’t believe this is he doesn’t usually do this-you can foment a false narrative without any blatant lies beyond which much of this tracks based on history and patterns. Still I’d be curious to know who this source is-assuming it’s a first rate rather than a more dubious one which I will assume until proven otherwise.

As I discussed above I was initially dubious but what I’ve come to understand is that Kirk was very much a man conflicted sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place. What matters is not wether or not he really had a personal Road to Damascus moment but rather growing schism in the MAGA movement and inside Turning Points USA itself. And it’s this which is really revelatory in Blumenthal’s reporting-that there is a major schism inside MAGA AND how much of a five car alarm fire this is for Bibi’s Israel.

OTOH Kirk’s organization was so dependent on the funding of wealthy Zionists. OTOH the grassroots of the organization were turning on Israel. For a long time Kirk had tried to keep a lid on this. There is video from 2020 of him pushing back very hard on kids criticizing on Israel. But post October 7 it became too prevalent to keep a lid on.

Indeed he himself made some rather curious comments about in an appearance on PBD soon after October 7

When host Patrick Bet David raised questions as to why one of the most sophisticated intelligence apparatuses in the world apparently failed to detect the attack, Kirk said he had the same questions.

“I’ve been Israel many times,” he said. “The whole country is a fortress. When I first heard this story – I still have the same gut instinct that I did initially.

“I find this very hard to believe. I’ve been to that Gaza border you cannot go 10 ft without running into a 19-year-old with an AR-15 or an automatic machine gun – an IDF Soldier right?

“The whole country is surveilled and so so let me let me just kind of go through this.

“We don’t talk about Israeli politics very often and most Americans don’t know this. The last nine months Israel was on the brink of civil war – it’s not an exaggeration.

“This judicial stuff – there were there were hundreds of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets because Bibi Netanyahu is basically redefining the Israeli Constitution.

“That’s not an exaggeration right, he said the judicial branch has too much power there were protests planned this week against Netanyahu where they anticipated tens of thousands of people to take to the streets.

“That’s all gone Patrick. Netanyahu now has an emergency government and a mandate to lead. I’m not I’m not willing to say to go so far that Netanyahu knew or there is intelligence here, but I think some questions need to be asked. Was there a stand down.”

The Israeli media itself began asking questions about the sudden absence of security on the southern border as early as November 2023.

It also subsequently emerged that the IDF had been given the “Hannibal directive” when it finally did respond to the attack – that is, an Israeli military policy aimed at preventing the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces – at any cost.

Kirk questioned Netanyahu’s Oct. 7 narrative a year ago – www.cairnsnews.org

Again for me when you talk about “conspiracy theories” it all goes back to two simple words: cuo bono? Who benefits? And what’s clear is two men benefitted greatly from October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Without Oct 7 both men probably lose and may well be in prison today-what Trump, Bibi, and Putin for that matter have in common is that all three men have to effectively die in power to avoid prison their crimes are so great.

While Blumenthal rather incoherently insists that Trump is cucked by Israel but NOT by Russia it’s notable that both Netanyahu and Putin are pretty much in the same position-they can’t allow their respective genocidal wars to end or they lose power and go to prison-in Russia it could be far worse than simply prison if Putin ever loses power.

CODA: I just saw this headline:

Trump Calls for Arrests of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker Over ICE Protection / X

In reading it I can’t help but reflect that Blumenthal and his fellow Bernie or Busters for years dismissed the warnings of #ResistanceLiberals like myself about Trump as “project fear”-Blumenthal clearly pushed very hard to reelect Trump in 2024. Like Comey I’m sure he never has a moment of self reflection of his own responsibility for this. yet leftists like him demonize Clinton far more than they ever did Trump.

I mean does Ana Kasparian think we call him a fascist yet?

Eric Daugherty on X: “🚨 BREAKING: President Trump just called for JAIL for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker after they failed to protect ICE officers following a terror attack. DO IT. https://t.co/bV6KXBq1gF” / X

Marxism-true story I’m not a Marxist I’m a reformist liberal but I have come to see that Marxism can be a very effective heuristic tool, Vaush was actually a big part of that during the Biden years-talks about the superstructure vs the base and the idea of how one’s material needs can inform their ideological base. But in the case of Kirk I suspect two different material needs were up against each other. OTOH he had all these wealthy Zionist donors-note I didn’t say “Jewish” like anti Semites do as many of them were not Jews but Christian Zionists-PACE Illan Pappe Christian Zionism predated Jewish Zionism-

A History of the ZIONIST LOBBY Both in England And the USA – The 21st Century

CF: Roots of the Israel Lobby | Diplomatic History | Oxford Academic

CODA: Basically in US politics Jewish Zionists are in the Democratic party while Christian Zionists are in the Republican party but Netanyahu much prefers the Republicans as at least in principle the Democrats believe in the two state solution. In the Addendum to the Prologue we saw that Whitney Webb herself noted that this is why it was Democratic politicians who needed to be entrapped by Epstein.

OTOH his young supporters were turning against Israel. Kirk could not keep the lid on this entirely without losing his grass roots. The paradox of TPUSA was that it was in some respects a small d democratic movement grooming young people for deeply reactionary ideas. He couldn’t keep the lid on forever and eventually he had to be responsive. An important nadir was when he invited Tucker Carlson-who’s reinvented himself as a strong critic of Israel  AND 9/11 Truther-after being literally the opposite during the Cheney-Bush Bush-Cheney years-to the TPUSA rally in July.

However before this we need to go back to May when Kirk sent this most extraordinary letter to: you guessed it-Netanyahu. Notable that while he mocked and dismissed the families of the hostages who wanted to have a ceasefire so they could have their family members released, Bib did have time for taking a letter from Charlie Kirk. So it’s very notable indeed striking to see who actually gets access with the Israeli dictator-who’s been in office roughtly the same period as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Max Blumenthal if you’re listening: they’re pretty much the same dude.

Indeed, before looking at Kirk’s extraordinary letter to Netanyahu let’s look at Netanyahu’s own extraordinary speech about Kirk soon after his death-when Candace Owens picked up on Blumenthal’s reporting and adding her own color as a close friend of Kirk’s.

Indeed-yet again!-we could start even before that with his NewsMax interview-NewsMax-where he was forced to deny that Israel killed Charlie Kirk.

(116) Netanyahu Forced To Deny Charlie Kirk Killing – YouTube

If he has to field these kinds of questions on Newsmax clearly he was nowhere safe.

So a few days after this he gave a state of the union cabinet level speech-the kind he didn’t even make after October 7. Here he spoke in more detail-standing at the podium next to none other than Little Marco Rubio

Israel’s Netanyahu Mourns ‘Great American Patriot’ Charlie Kirk During Press Briefing With Rubio

If nothing else this was particularly apropos two have too such evil men standing next to each other at one moment. But just recently it was revealed that Larry Ellison of all people-the new owner of CBS who is bringing in Bari “We are all Fascists Now” Weiss had vetted Little Marco in 2016 when he was running in the GOP primary and that Eillison had decided Rubio had passed the muster-he was a great friend of Israel. That’s what matters that he would be a great steward for Israel security rather than America’s.

(1) Larry Ellison Vetted Marco Rubio for Fealty to Israel, Hacked Emails Reveal

But how many evil actions and deeds have these two hideous men visited upon this world? I mean how many have suffered and died just thanks to Little Marco’s draconian cuts at USAID? Again Rubio certainly has been a great steward for Israeli national interests while being a disaster for American interests. But listening to Bibi’s actual words in this speech was beyond gaslighting talk about peeing down someone’s leg while telling them it’s raining.

He had the temerity to speak of free speech while his thugs coerced Greta Thunberg to kiss the Israeli flag and claimed that many people talk about democracy who want to trample democracy-well seeing that Bibi’s been in office the better part of 30 years seems like he’s done more than anyone to “trample democracy.”

Again as I touched on in the Prologue there is no one more committed to trampling democracy worldwide starting in the US of A itself than Bibi’s Israel along with the US Republican party and certainly since 9/11 Putin’s Russia-maybe throw in of course MBS’ Saudi Arabia.

Anyway here was his “State of the Union” speech as promised-he does seem to be sitting in the equivalent of the US oval office here. His first words apropos enough were “Joseph Goebbels”

Netanyahu Slams ‘Monstrous Lie’ Linking Israel to Charlie Kirk’s Murder

It’s not a long speech:

Joseph Gerbles, the Nazi propaganda Joseph Gerbles, the Nazi propaganda the faster it will spread.”

Very true as Bibi was always one of his best students as is Trump who kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches by his bed years ago. Netanyahu told some truly monstrous lies about yitzhak Rabin whose widow never stopped blaming for her husband’s assassination. When Rabin was murdered so was any chance Israel would ever achieve a two state solution with the Palestinians. Clinton who had been negotiating with Rabin was heartbroken but of course Israel’s Likudniks which would go onto orchestrate his impeachment was right where it wanted to be embarking on a 30 year period that saw Netanyahu in the Prime Minster’s chair over 85% of that time.

Back to Bibi: “Well, somebody has fabricated a monstrous big lie that Israel had something to do with Charlie Kirk’s horrific murder. This is insane. It is false. It is outrageous. Charlie Kirk was a giant, a once- in a century talent who defended freedom, defended America, defended our common Judeo-Christian civilization. Charlie loved Israel. He loved the Jewish people. He told me so in a letter that he sent me just a few months ago. ”

What’s fascinating is that he felt it necessary to say this at all. Beyond that though is just how deep his relationship with Kirk was. It underscores how involved he is in US politics. This letter from Kirk we will look at this below he sent to Bibi in May. And what it underscores is the extent to which Netanyahu is a political actor in Israeli American politics.

I’d always had this sense that Netanyahu acts like another Republican President-going back to when he simply endorsed Romney in 2012 and spoke to the Republican House in 2014 while snubbing Obama.

But this makes it undeniable that this sense was correct all along. And what I think this really points to is how dependent Netanyahu is not so much on his own Likud faction in Israel as his the US’ MAGA faction. Like Trump and his base are what are keeping him in power and if he loses them he loses it all. But he can’t lose Trump-as Blumenthal argues he has Trump completely stuffed in his back pocket. BUT the MAGA base remains a worry.

It is this whole dimension of things I as a #ResistanceLib cum Hillary Clinton Democrat was not aware of prior to Kirk’s assassination and these pieces from Blumenthal and Candace Owen’s personal revelations as one of Kirk’s best friends. It underscores also just how tenuous not just Bibi’s grip on power is but also Trump’s-again the same thing remains true of Blumenthal’s buddy Vladimir Putin who basically can NOT allow the war in Ukraine to end-despite Blumenthal’s absurd assertions prior to the 2024 election that Putin was who “wanted peace” and Zelensky seduced by Boris Johnson was the obstructionist-and we will have more to say about this below don’t worry.

Again it can be easy to miss the full nuances and dimensions of this as so many shocking things are now happening everyday but just the fact that Kirk was this close to Netanyahu is astonishing and very significant-it’s significance simply can not be exaggerated.

Bibi finished his Charlie Kirk sponsored SOTU by pointing out Kirk reaffirmed his love and support for Israel. yes-but: He encouraged me to make the case directly to the American people about how vital Israel is to US national security. He told me, “The Holy Land is so important to my life, it pains me to see support for Israel slip away.”

Again this is extremely significant. What it indicates is that TPUSA was central and essential for Netanyahu’s plans for Israel-and Gaza. As to what his plans I have to give it to Norman Finklestein as grudgingly as it very may well be-the goal is clearly ethnic cleansing. October 7 provided the necessary pretense to complete the long term goal which is Greater Israel

CODA: Begrudging after Finklestein came up with a more intellectually and morally obscene defense of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine than even Blumenthal, even Blumenthal’s BFF Jackson Hinkle-that Putin was RIGHT to invade Ukraine because after all Putin claimed he was doing it to defeat “Nazis” in Ukraine and Russia lost 27 million Russians to Nazis in WWII ergo any real or imagined threat Russia claims to feel from “Nazis” justifies anything which again is quite ironic seeing as this is exactly Bibi’s justification-according to him Israel too is fighting “Nazis’ after all the Jews lost to the Nazis in WWII.

But clearly Israel was very concerned by the clear pivot in TPUSA tone and coverage. In response to Blumenthal’s original post we quoted from above, Bill Ackerman had argued that Blumenthal was distorting to the true tenor and tone-the meeting he and other Israel donors had in the Summer with Kirk wasn’t this dramatic. But even Bbi’s own version of events makes it clear that this was a Code Red moment for Israel as it’s last reliable base of support in the US was now loosening.

He admitted Kirk wanted him to make the case directly to the American people ie Kirk was telling him he and his folks at TPUSA could do only so much-it was time for Israel to take a lead in its own advocacy. Of course this is not something they’re very well equipped to do-unlike  Kirk, Bibi is not exactly what you’d call charismatic. So instead they’re looking to take over the US media but more here below though we already touched on it vis a vis Larry Ellison’s takeover of CBS and hiring of Bari “We are all Fascists Now” Weiss to run the network.

So let’s look at Kirk’s astonishing letter to Bibi-I keep calling it astonishing it was and it’s important not to lose sight of this in an era where it’s so hard to forget the astonishing things of yesterday when new astonishing things keep happening today. A major part of what I call our “epistemic collapse” as a nation is the loss of any historical memory of not just what happened 20 years ago but what happened last week.

Like Trump 2.0 has been far worse even than Trump 1.0 yet you’d never know this from the mainstream press’ headlines as Trump’s fascism has become normalized as he engages in so much of it.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, One of my greatest joys as a Christian is advocating for Israel and forming alliances with Jews in the fight to protect Judeo-Christian civilization. Most recently, I am proud to have taken over Ambassador Huckabee’s show on TBN where we continually support Israel and the Jewish people. As Muhammadism spreads into Western societies, it’s critical that Jews and Christians stay united in the effort to contain and roll back radical Islam and Sharia law. I regret to report that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic trends are at record levels on social media. These negative sentiments then flow downstream into college campuses and even seep into the conservative MAGA community.”

Again amazing how close Kirk’s relationship was with a foreign leader and the tone of it is almost a kind of progress report for a client.

“My team and I have spent months analyzing these trends and debating ideas that could help you and your country pushback against these disturbing developments. Anti-Israel sentiment can undermine American support for Israel. The purpose of this letter is to lay out our concerns and outline potential remedies. Everything written here is from a place of deep love for Israel and the Jewish people. I think it’s important to be brutally honest with those you love. In my opinion, Israel is losing the information war and needs a “communications intervention.”

Losing the information war. As we saw above, Bibi in his short homily about Kirk above, referenced that Kirk urged him to “make the case directly to the American people about how vital Israel is to US national security.” Buit let’s face it Bibi lacks the charisma Kirk had if he can’t win over the conservative Zoomers it’s unlikely the Israeli dictator can-again he’s been in office about as long as Putin. And Bibi probably  has more charisma than the average Israeli official as he is very Americanized.

Indeed since Kirk’s murder, he did try to… do a few podcasts-notably Ben Shapiro naturally.

(127) EXCLUSIVE: Ben Shapiro Interviews Benjamin Netanyahu – YouTube

He also did Dinesh O’Souza-naturally

ONE ON ONE WITH NETANYAHU Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep1184

But clearly the main part of Israel’s plan to respond to Kirk’s warning that they’re losing the information war is that if you can’t win in the marketplace of ideas buy it out. In a potentially huge move they have now effectively purchased TikTok as Oracle is very pro Israel to say the least.

Oracle’s TikTok Takeover Raises Questions About Corporate Pro-Israel Influence

CODA: Oracle is apparently so pro Israel that employees deemed not pro Israel enough are sent to counseling-as a first step.

Oracle execs: Love Israel or maybe this isn’t the job for you

Indeed in retrospect it’s much clearer to understand what’s been going on with TikTok. The question always begged what was it about TikTok that led Congress to take the extraordinary step of effectively passing a bill ostensibly “deporting” it from the US-unless its sold to an American buyer? A move that is dubious legally as well as not making much sense in any other logical sense  wether technologically or economically-certainly makes a mockery of the US’ alleged championing of free trade-though with Trump 2.0 our alleged championing of free trade effectively to paraphrase Britain’s MacMillian “in tatters” anyway.

Initially Trump in his first term had demanded this move but then the entire Congress-Democrats as well as Republicans voted almost unanimously to ban TikTok-and suddenly Trump had his lawyer bring a case to his Roberts-Kavanaugh Court to save TikTok-the usual chaotic whiplash in other words.

But the bigger picture about TikTok aside from the alleged threat of the Chinese smuggling in their propaganda into the social media platform is that Israel was extremely unhappy with it as well they might seeing that pro Palestinian outnumber pro Israel by like 14-1 on the platform.

As the Israel-Gaza war got underway in October 2023, Republican lawmakers bolstered their calls to ban Chinese-owned TikTok by arguing that the viral video-sharing app was being overrun by pro-Palestinian content about the bloody conflict.

U.S.-based TikTok posters still show overwhelming support for Palestinians as the war rages on in Gaza, according to a report published Tuesday by the nonpartisan research center Cybersecurity for Democracy. It found that for every pro-Israel post that appeared on TikTok in September there were roughly 17 posts supporting Palestinians. That finding, based on an analysis of hashtags that users attach to their posts, is roughly the same as what the center found nearly two years ago

TikTok posts on Israel-Gaza war are overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian

Hmm-you think that might change now that such a pro Israel corporation as Oracle is taking over? If employees who aren’t pro Israel enough go to counseling first then shown the door what will happen to posts that aren’t just not pro Israel enough but rabidly  anti Israel?

CODA: As if there weren’t enough problems with having Oracle take over TikTok now apparently Trump demanded and got yet another qujd pro quo:

Post by @sethabramson.bsky.social — Bluesky

Of course Oracle is also effectively taking over CBS and installing Bari-“We are all Fascists Now” Weiss

Bari Weiss takes reins at CBS News

Indeed while Israel defenders dismiss any discussion of untoward Israel influence as anti Semitism it’s no easy to keep up these blithe denials with stories like this. I mean NO it’s not true that “the Jews control the media” but it’s clear that the Israel’s objective is to control as much of it as possible on an international basis.

Golan Pushes for Social Media Restrictions if Elected

Section: A bombshell scoop by Candace Owens Confirmed

Again what the post Kirk aftermath revealed to me complements of Max Blumenthal and Candace Owens-who was a close Kirk friend and fellow member of the MAGA Far Right-is the fissures inside MAGA. In the aftermath Owens has been at the forefront for anti Zionist MAGA. This has been to the consternation of blatant racist cum anti semitic cum blatant Nazi Nick Fuentes who repeatedly called Owen’s bluff-if she has evidence that Kirk was leaving Zionism who needs to prove it. This is what happens when you call their bluff-they may do what you assume they won’t as Owens did recently.

In the messages shared by Owens, someone that she claims to be her friend and former colleague Charlie Kirk can be seen complaining of “losing” a Jewish donor.”

Another message says: “Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes. I cannot and will not be bullied like this. Leaving me no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause.”

Max Blumenthal on X: “TPUSA’s Andrew Kolvet has confirmed the authenticity of texts showing Charlie Kirk declaring he was left with “no choice but to leave the pro Israel cause,” and complaining that “Jewish donors” had “bullied him” Netanyahu cutouts like Josh Hammer were on this chat and lied https://t.co/zDx7AV8OG5” / X

To be sure at this point the Zionist MAGA response typified by Josh Hammer is that sure Kirk said this but he was ‘just blowing steam and being sarcastic’

(1) Josh Hammer on X: “I have been extremely reluctant to post screenshots from a murdered friend. It feels icky. I don’t like it. But while I was offline this week for a holiday, a high-profile, deeply unwell lunatic used screenshots of an intimate group chat I was in with Charlie Kirk and some https://t.co/l0Jk6Cczzd” / X

Section: Israel, Israel, Israel. Russia, Russia, Russia. The Max Blumenthal Paradox

The picture we get from Blumenthal’s reporting is stark-in June Kirk personally spoke to Trump and urged him not to go to war with Iran-remember that for three months prior the narrative was that Trump was preventing war with Iran even Chris Hayes of all people about 12 hours before Trump had the US military strike Iran had taken it at face value that Trump was preventing Israel from striking Iran-then the US itself struck Iran.

Trump however didn’t want to hear it and “roared at Kirk”-per Blumenthal. The reason for this was Trump has become so beholden to Netanyahu’s Israel.

According to Kirk’s longtime friend, Kirk’s resentment of Netanyahu and the Israel lobby was spreading within Trump’s inner circle. In fact, they said, the president himself was terrified of Netanyahu’s wrath, and feared the consequences of defying him. ”

Indeed at this speech in Israel yesterday celebrating the current deal Trump himself did note that Bibi’s not exactly the easiest guy in the world to deal with.

“And he is not easy. I want to tell you that he’s not the easiest guy to deal with, but that’s what makes him great. That’s what makes him great.”

(130) BREAKING NEWS: Trump Celebrates Hostage Release And Gaza Peace Deal In Address To Israel’s Knesset – YouTube

Location: 3:46

This story of the entrapment of the President of the United States by foreign interference and entrapment is a rather striking place for Blumenthal to end up seeing how much he, Mate, Jimmy Dore, Jackson Hinkle, et al have dismissed out of the hand the notion that a US administration could be compromised by foreign powers in the case of Russiagate. Even Blumenthal himself noted this point with some irony.

(130) “Putting Lipstick On a HOLOCAUST!” Trump Plans Gaza Deal With Netanyahu + James Comey Indicted – YouTube

FN:

Charlie Kirk refused Netanyahu funding offer, was ‘frightened’ by pro-Israel forces before death, friend reveals – The Grayzone

Max Blumenthal – Wikipedia

Did a Kremlin Pilgrimage cause Alternet blogger’s Damascene conversion? – P U L S E

(96) Max Blumenthal Reveals Surveillance Program in Yemen Run by Cambridge Analytica Parent Company SCL – YouTube

Donald Trump deserved the Nobel prize, says … Vladimir Putin  – POLITICO

Melania Trump says she and Vladimir Putin have ‘open channel of communication’ on war-displaced children – POLITICO