Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The Fumes of Fanaticism by James Howard Kunstler

Judging by the volume of intemperate emails and angry social media blasts that come my way, the party of impeachment seems to be inhaling way too much gas from the smoking guns it keeps finding in the various star chambers of its inquisition against you-know-who. You’d think that the failure of Mr. Mueller’s extravaganza might have chastened them just a little — a $32 million-dollar effort starring the most vicious partisan lawyers inside-the-Beltway, 2,800 subpoenas issued over two years, 500 search warrants exercised, and finally nothing whatever to pin on Mr. Trump — except the contra-legal assertion that now he must prove his innocence.
When you state just that, these frothing hysterics reply that many background figures — if not the Golden Golem of Greatness himself — were indicted and convicted of crimes by Mr. Mueller’s crew. Oh yes! The Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency was indicted for spending $400,000 on Facebook ads (and never extradited or tried in a court-of-law). Pretty impressive victory there! The hacking of Hillary Clinton’s emails by “Russia”? Still just alleged, never proven, with plenty of shady business around the search for evidence. Paul Manafort, on tax evasion of money earned in Ukraine, 2014? We’ll see about that as the whole filthy business of the 2014 Ukraine regime change op under Mr. Obama gets reviewed in the months ahead. George Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI? Stand by on that one, too; still a developing story. General Michael Flynn, for ditto? You may have noticed that General Flynn’s case is shaping up to be the biggest instance of prosecutorial misconduct since the Dreyfus affair (France, 1894-1906, which badly-educated Americans most certainly know nothing about).
To set the record straight I’m forced to repeat something that these New Age Jacobins seem unable to process: you don’t have to be a Trump cheerleader to be revolted by the behavior of his antagonists, which is a stunning spectacle of bad faith, dishonesty, incompetence, and malice — and is surely way more toxic to the American project than anything the president has done. Every time I entertain the complaints of these angry auditors, I’m forced to remind myself that these are the same people who think that “inclusion” means shutting down free speech, who believe that the US should not have borders, who promote transsexual reading hours in the grammar schools, and who fiercely desire to start a war with Russia.
That’s not a polity I want to be associated with and until it screws its head back on, I will remain the enemy of it. In fact, in early November I’m traveling to New York City, where the Jacobin city council has just made it a crime to utter the phrase illegal alien in a public place, with a $250,000 penalty attached. I challenge their agents to meet me in Penn Station and arrest me when I go to the information kiosk and inquire if they know what is the best place in midtown Manhattan to meet illegal aliens.
The volume of Jacobin hysteria ratcheted up to “11” late last week when the news broke that the Attorney General’s study of RussiaGate’s origins was upgraded to a criminal investigation, and that a voluminous report from the DOJ Inspector General is also about to be released. What do you suppose they’re worried about? Naturally the Jacobins’ bulletin board, a.k.a The New York Timesfired a salvo denouncing William Barr — so expect his reputation to be the next battle zone for these ever more desperate fanatics. Talk of preemptively impeaching him is already crackling through the Twitter channels. That will be an excellent sideshow.
Meanwhile, how is Rep, Adam Schiff’s secret proceeding going? Last week he put out a narrative that US ChargĂ© d’Affaires to Ukraine Bill Taylor fired a gun-that-smoked fer sure in testimony. Except, of course, as per Mr. Schiff’s usual practice, he refused to issue any actual transcript of the interview in evidence, while there are plenty of indications that Mr. Taylor’s second-hand gossip was roundly refuted under counter-questioning by the non-Jacobin minority members of the House intel Committee. Mr. Schiff’s pattern lo these many months of strife has been to claim ultimate proof of wrongdoing only to have it blow up in his face. It’s a face that many Americans are sick of seeing and hearing from, and I am serenely confident that before this colossal scandal is resolved, the Congressman from Hollywood will be fatally disgraced, as was his role-model, Senator Joseph McCarthy, before him.

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