Monday, March 06, 2017

What if...IT'S A TRAP?


I've been reading Roger Stone's feed. Like Trump himself, he's a poker player with many tells.

I've also taken note of the fact that Nunes says Congress will investigate the claimed "tapp" on Trump Tower. Heretofore, the House Republicans have done everything they could to stymie inquiries and to protect Trump. At first glance, it would seem that an honest investigation would serve only to keep the Russia connection in the news. So why is Nunes going down this road?

Hell, why did Trump go down this road? Why did he insist on a congressional inquiry?

Why is Kellyanne Conway challenging Comey to divulge evidence which Comey says does not exist?

Many right-wing pseudojournalists have been screeching about a Grand Obama Conspiracy. What if those screechers are not just paranoiacs but plotters?

A Trump insider told Mike Allen:
"The president just has a great nose for these things," the official said. "It's the bureaucratic leaks — the deep state — that bother him most. Even if it turns out not to be true that they surveilled Trump Tower, he will have a very good point to make about the level of sabotage coming from Obama holdovers."
In other words, this is -- at the very least -- an excuse for a purge. But I think that the plan goes deeper and darker. On the morning Towergate first broke -- mere minutes after Trump tweeted those seemingly-insane tweets -- I wrote:
There are other possibilities: Maybe Trump has gone completely mad. Maybe Trump is just lying. Maybe there is a plot afoot to frame Obama. The more I ponder that final theory, the more intriguing it seems.
Garry Kasparov's feed sounds a similar note:
I warned Trump would never stop “running” against Obama (& Hillary) personally, not on policy. He needs big enemies & it riles his base.
The tradition of going after one’s predecessor in power is very familiar to anyone from an authoritarian regime. Purges, scapegoating, etc.
Trump is no genius, but he's not that stupid. He likes schemes and tricks and powerplays, and his friend Roger is renown for coming up with schemes and tricks and powerplays. Many people scoff and giggle at Roger Stone, but I do not. In the past, many of his schemes and tricks and powerplays have worked.

The leading anti-Trumpers on Twitter keep feeding us chum from the intel community -- and yes, I'm hooked. I can't help but be hooked, because so much of it is so damned intriguing. But is it trustworthy? All of it? As I keep reminding my readers (and I seem to be the only one saying this), Breitbart has always been close to (part of?) the intel community, or at least a faction within it.

On the Chris Hayes show, Masha Gessen sounded a note of caution similar to the one I am sounding here. The anti-Trump movement has become too damned reliant on Spookworld. We mere civilians can never really trust Spookworld, because so many expert deceivers call that world home.

Something is amiss here. If freakin' Nunes is saying "investigate," then we have to ask why -- and we must not be content with the easy, conventional MSM answers to the all-important question of motive. When a member of a criminal gang says "There! Grab your shovels and dig there!" -- that's when you should suspect that someone has planted evidence.

My gut instinct has been wrong many times before. But right now, my gut says: It's a trap.

Added note: Read what Marcy has to say in light of the theory -- if I may call it that -- outlined above.

10 comments:

gerry-troll said...

What if their correct?

If they would tap Merkel who says they would not do others? Does not mean it was not legal under our laws if a FISA court said ok. But for all we know a FISA court would indict a ham sandwich.

You are worried Trump would do all this stuff. You never considered Obama-the killing drone machine-would do also

Joseph Cannon said...

No, I do not. Favreau had it exactly right:

"Barack Obama's master plan:
1) Wiretap the opposition
2) Gather damaging info
3) Say nothing
4) Let him win
5) Ride off into the sunset"

If Obama had wanted Trump not to be president, he could have arranged that outcome. Hell, he could have put Trump in jail.

A more compelling theory is that Obama intentionally deep-sixed Hillary to assure that a looming economic bust occurred on a Republican's watch. No, I have no proof of that, and I can't even claim to half-believe it. But the idea has been lurking in the back of my brain for months now.

OldCoastie said...

Trump Tower may well be bugged but I'd bet it is by foreign agents.

Joseph Cannon said...

Interesting thought, OldCoastie. GCHQ spying on an American target and passing the info along to NSA? Such things have happened.

Anonymous said...

Like he said rigged election and the dums screech nooooo
He said before the election he already won why bother with the election and the dums scream noooooo. So after the election they can't go back and say we were just kidding. About Obama wanted to deep six Hillary, I am not against that theory.

Lastlemming said...

Why do I think of the line from the Stephen Spender poem--"not waving but drowning"?

Can a drowning man be a trap? Well sure. In this case he can bring a whole country, not just a lone rescuer, down with him.

However, Nunes keeps asking for an investigation. Just who is supposed to investigate? Congress? Well, they can hold a hearing. Here goes:

Nunes: Did the FBI tapp Trump's phone?

FBI: No.*

Nunes: Well, ok then.

If the FBI isn't playing some kind of ball, then is congress planning to hire "Acme Agency" gumshoes to go out there with binoculars and, God forbid, tape recorders, and gin up some kind of clues?

By the way, my spouse knew Nunes socially and called him, "just a really nice guy." So much for judgement.

*(Unspoken) Question as narrowly defined...

Anonymous said...

Stone did himself no favors with his misogynist attack though. Hillary Democrats notice that level of misogyny and I made sure they knew Stone has a long history of attacking liberals going back to the Nixon administration. That Stone was doing that for Nixon since at least the early 1970's. So even the young Hillary Democrats on Twitter will now know exactly who Roger Stone is. They won't get that from the mainstream media- not even the ones that posture themselves as progressives like Maddow, Hayes, etc... Joy Reid's the only one I'd even have a vague hope she'd pass it along if she knew. Joy's an actually a proven progressive Democrat though.

Ciardha

Anonymous said...

Where's the beef? I've been following the Russia story more raptly than most, and I don't think a conspiracy is far-fetched at all. But Clapper said yesterday that up to January 20, when he was NSA chief, there was no evidence of Russian collusion. Until and unless there's another big reveal, I'm tuning out. It's too much of a tease. And Schindler and Mensch, by the way, strike me as totally unreliable.

Anonymous said...

Nunes' actions can be explained fairly easily, and with less moving parts.

He's like a junior officer loyal to Captain Queeg on the Caine. The old man is crazy, but the loyal junior officer backs him up. Nunes is a Trump toady, and by apparently taking this seriously, he provides many benefits to Trump. Short term, it covers the craziness. Someone apparently serious is taking it seriously. With an investigation proceeding that will take some time and can be controlled by the chair, the WH and Trump can remain silent and figure something out.

I do remain open to the possibility of wheels within wheels, and hidden hands at work. Perhaps it is even Putin who has been set up. Should Pence replace Trump, Russia will be back squarely in the crosshairs.

XI

Anonymous said...

Maybe I missing something, but if the reason Trump kicked out bc of messing with the election doesn't that means all the republican ticket wins not valid? So why Pence becomes the president