So soon the Trump is burned and we arrive where we were always heading: A disgusting redux of the disgusting B. Clinton administration. The first time was more farce than the second will be. Not that both are not tragic -- for the people at the bottom of the hill, who get the shit rolling down on their heads.
But in some ways, here is the same situation as in 1992-98: The Republicans and the Republican-leaning deep state can't hit the Clintons for their actual political crimes, because those are not really Clinton crimes. These are crimes of state, or crimes equally of Republicans. (Back in the 1990s the mutually assured destruction move was Mena.) So they look for something on the side. In the 1990s, that was the petty Arkansas real estate deals, indistinguishable from standard practice of politicians in almost every other state, known as "Whitewater." And then, of course, Clinton's penis. With H. Clinton until now, it was "Benghazi," a side-accident that was the predictable outcome of the Libyan regime change operation. And now the e-mails, which are very interesting for the content. Except the corporate media coverage and the Republicans aren't interested in the content. (Nor, obviously are the Democrats.)
Never mind your order to commit a war of aggression to destroy the country of Libya, that's just sound policy! What matters is that you sent it from the wrong server!
And of course the issue always, always, is whether they can get Clinton. It does not matter at all whether felonies or misdemeanors or mass murders were committed. It's all about advantage, and any means is equally good.
The mug's game I now see being played is trying to figure out what Comey is doing. I'm pretty sure it's as I lay it out: Many or most Republican politicians and deep-staters, I presume, prefer a Clinton win to a Trump win. The deep staters (I am speculating) would prefer her for the foreign policy stability, and the Republican establishment (we all know) prefer her because they figure they can get more action out of a weak Clinton than by having this honest-fascist-for-morons schtick artist ruin their show.
Comey's moves, first hammering Clinton when she's too far up, then suddenly pretending to exonerate her again once Trump is too close, seem calibrated to make sure that Trump is defeated, but not too decisively, thus reducing the risk of a Democratic Congress. Which would be far more of a threat, since then the Democratic left (such as they are) would be clamoring and Clinton would lose the welcome cover of a Republican Congress.
But that's just what seems. I don't pretend to be in Comey's head!
People hear about a given connection, take it as though it is static, and assume it suffices to explain someone's motives. Depending on what Comey's doing today, he's the committed partisan Republican Whitewater investigator of old, who wants to do damage to the noble Clintons. But wait, he is under pressure from The Man (Obama).
Or else, he's a beneficiary of the Clinton Foundation, and actually he wants to shield her from the investigation.
When he opens his trap about the e-mails, it's one accusation. When he shuts up again, it's the other. And of course, there is no way to prove either, or figure out for sure what's really going on, since there may be any number of influences we cannot see. Who knows who's got what dirt on whom, or who benefits in what way from what, or who is in a position to influence Comey?
People come with their partisan preferences, so they present full narratives of one or the other, without bothering to acknowledge alternate possibilities. And it's all talking out their ass, and it's a complete waste of time, above all because it is about details only and lacks all the context that matters.
Who the fuck cares what Comey is thinking? Isn't it more important that these people are all alligators in a rotten swamp? Drain the swamp!
The FBI is political police and always has been, since Hoover's days on the Palmer Raids in 1919-20. The best thing that can come of this is to expose its general functioning as such.
The Clintons are very successful opportunists who built a faction within a power elite. Anything that damages them alone, without effecting a political shift away from war and neoliberalism, is just a factional distraction. It shouldn't matter to us. The move after the election will be to continue the election show for another xxx months, wherein everything that matters in the world continues to be ignored and the corporate media and the Greater Punditry of Twitterface continue to talk about her fucking e-mails and Trump's responses to the latest developments in her saga. Those of us in urban areas who have little means of escaping public TV screens and endless human chatter will come to consider it a mercy if this leads to a quick impeachment. How strange, that this will be both a deserved comeuppance (really a minor punishment) and yet, at the same time, an injustice, since the impeachers will be criminals equal to the Clintons.
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