[rad-green] On the media reaction to word that the RussiaGate had been officially upgraded to a criminal investigation

*https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-sound-of-shoes-dropping-in-the-night/
<https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-sound-of-shoes-dropping-in-the-night/>*

*Clusterfuck Nation                             October 25, 2019*

*The Sound of Shoes Dropping in the Night*
<https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-sound-of-shoes-dropping-in-the-night/>

It was interesting to watch the Cable News divas go incandescent under the
glare of their own gaslight late yesterday when they received the
unpleasant news that the Barr & Durham “review” of RussiaGate had been
officially upgraded to a “criminal investigation.” Rachel Maddow’s
trademark pouty-face got a workout as she strained to imagine “…what *the
thing* is that Durham might be looking into.” Yes, that’s a riddle, wrapped
in a mystery, inside an enigma, all right… with a sputtering fuse sticking
out of it. Welcome to the Wile E. Coyote Lookalike Club, Rache. You’ll have
a lot of competition when the Sunday morning news-chat shows rev up.

Minutes later, the answer dawned on her: “It [*the thing*] follows the
wildest conspiracy theories from Fox News!” You’d think that someone who
invested two-plus years of her life in the Mueller report, which blew up in
her pouty-face last spring, might have felt a twinge of journalistic
curiosity as to the sum-and-substance of *the thing*. But no, she just
hauled on-screen RussiaGate intriguer David Laufman, a former DOJ lawyer
who ran the agency’s CounterIntel and Export Control desk during the
RussiaGate years, and also helped oversee the botched Hillary Clinton
private email server probe.

“They have this theory,” Rachel said, “that maybe Russia didn’t interfere
in the election….”

“It’s preposterous,” said Mr. Laufman, all lawyered up and ready to draw a
number and take a seat for his own grand jury testimony. (Note: Mr. Laufman
was also deeply involved in the Brett Kavanaugh fiasco as lawyer to
Christine Blasey Ford’s BFF, former FBI agent Monica McLean.)

Over in the locked ward of CNN, Andy Cooper and Jeff Toobin attempted to
digest the criminal investigation news as if someone had ordered in a
platter of shit sandwiches for the green room just before air-time. Toobin
pretended to not know exactly who the mysterious Joseph Mifsud was, and
struggled to even pronounce his name: “…Mifsood? Misfood…? You mean the
Italian professor?” No Jeff, the guy employed by several “friendly” foreign
intelligence agencies, and the CIA, to sandbag Trump campaign advisor
George Papadopoulos, and failed. I guess when you’re at the beating heart
of TV news, you don’t have to actually follow any of the stories reported
outside your range of thought and experience.

Next Andy hauled onscreen former Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper (now a paid CNN “contributor”) to finesse a distinction between the
“overall investigation of the Russian interference” and “the
counterintelligence investigation that was launched by the FBI.” Consider
that Mr. Clapper was right in the middle between the CIA and the FBI. Since
he is known to be a friend of Mr. Comey’s and a not-friend of Mr. Brennan’s
one can easily see which way Mr. Clapper is tilting. One can also see the
circular firing squad that this is a setup for. And, of course, Mr. Clapper
himself will be a subject in Mr. Durham’s criminal case proceedings. I
predict October will be the last month that Mr. Clapper draws a CNN
paycheck — as he hunkers down with his attorneys awaiting the subpoena with
his name on it.

The *New York Times story
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/politics/john-durham-criminal-investigation.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>*
on
this turn of events Friday morning is a lame attempt to rescue former FBI
Director Jim Comey by pinning the blame for RussiaGate on the CIA, shoving
CIA John Brennan under the bus. The Times report says: “Mr. Durham has also
asked whether C.I.A. officials might have somehow tricked the F.B.I. into
opening the Russia investigation.” There’s the next narrative for you.
Expect to hear this incessantly well into 2020: “*We wuz tricked*!”

I wonder if there is any way to hold the errand boys-and-girls in the news
media accountable for their roles as handmaidens in what will be eventually
known as a seditious coup to overthrow a president. We do enjoy freedom of
the press in this land, but I can see how these birds merit charges as
unindicted co-conspirators in the affair. One wonders if the various boards
of directors of the newspaper and cable news outfits might seek to salvage
their self-respect by firing the executives who allowed it to happen. If
anything might be salutary in the outcome of this hot mess, it would be a
return to respectability of the news media.

As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight
into his own historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable
standing denounces him as a fraud and a scoundrel… and the mysterious
workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a criticality
threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It
has happened before in history. Two centuries before Joe McCarthy, the
French national assembly suddenly turned on the Jacobins Robespierre and
St. Just after their orgy of beheading 17,000 enemies. The two were quickly
dispatched themselves to the awe of their beloved guillotine and the
Jacobin faction was not heard of again — until recently in America, where
it first infected the Universities and then sickened the polity at large
almost unto death.

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