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May
04
2019

Clownshow In DC
Karl Denninger 

Well that escalated quickly and foolishly.

First, Pelosi.  Accusing Barr of criminal conduct is an instant "we're done" in terms of cooperation.  Do that with someone when you want to question them under oath and all you get from there is "I take the 5th".  And that's not limited to Barr either; since Pelosi has thrown that out there nobody in the Administration -- or previously in it -- should do anything other than give name and take the 5th.  Show up, erect the middle finger in the form of the 5th Amendment and then shut up.  Any subpoena for a "thing" issued you fight.   Voluntarily comply with nothing.

That was the dumbest thing I've heard someone say who claims to be "respectable" and "honorable" in my years as an adult -- unless her intent was to provoke Trump into telling her -- and the rest of Congress -- to go to Hell.  She hasn't been the only one doing so of late either.

I wasn't surprised to see Trump do exactly that.  On the air -- not on Twitter.

So here's my nickel review: This is all clown show political nonsense.

But there's a problem with people like Pelosi and the others -- hubris.

They may think they can press this.  Really press it.  In other words take this from clown-show political garbage to real tyranny.  Swalwell, one of the idiots running for President, has issued a backhanded threat to nuke Americans -- on American soil!  When challenged on his "gun control" nonsense and asked if he was looking for a war he pointed out that the US Government has 6,000 nuclear weapons and quipped "it would be a short war."

I will note that in most states a credible threat to kill you is a criminal offense.  Worse, such a threat in combination with the ability to carry it out is legal justification for your preemptive use of force to neutralize that threat.  Eric seems to think "common people" are not entitled to the very same protections that would be applied against you were you to threaten to kill him.  Well it is true that today he can't drop a nuke on you.  Were he to win the Presidency (highly unlikely), however.... or were he to try to pass his predicate bill that would come before nuking Americans....

Remember, this sort of the law doesn't apply to me isn't exactly a new position for Congresscritters.  The Democrats appear to have illegally initiated the surveillance -- probably all the way up the line to Obama.  Further, it was developed and reported today by the NY Times that the FBI attempted to infiltrate the Trump campaign.  On what sort of basis?

There are so many likely felonies here that I literally have trouble listing them all.  Perjury before a Federal Judge is just the start of this, I suspect.  And while Barr has said he intends to run it all down.... will he?  Is that what the Democrats are freaking out about -- the prospect of a few dozen indictments?

Here's the problem.

The lone nuts don't really scare anyone.  They're nuts.  They're the sort that took potshots at Steve Scalise.  No thought of substance and nearly all could legitimately be considered insane.  A few will get off a few shots and do damage, some will get caught, none of them think what they're doing through.  They're rage-monsters, basically.  Then there are all those who claim to be "all that" (e.g. Antifa) but not only are nuts they're also fundamentally cowards.  And finally you have the real terrorists -- who's intent is to cause terror.  Witness the guy baited and caught the other day out west; he likely fit into both insane and terrorist.

But the ability to resist tyranny, and the expression of resistance by whatever means are necessary, is an inherent part of America's DNA.  It's been silent for a very long time, but it's not gone.  I'm sure of it.

At what point does hubris get pressed too far?  I don't know.

I just know you can.

And I know if that happens very ugly things are likely to happen.

There are 535 Congresscritters.  That's a VERY small number.

There are 330 million American citizens.  How many are (1) not insane, and (2) still have that DNA in them in a form and fashion that it can be activated by too much of that hubris? None of those people will be talking about anything in advance; not on Facebook, not in a blog, in a  bar, on Twitter -- nowhere. How many of those have either formal training, a cunning and practical mind along with a willingness to cash themselves if they have to in order to "make a difference" or worse both -- and decide to act in an effort to dissuade what they see -- quite arguably as legitimately so -- as credible threats to destroy the Constitution?

I don't know.

But this much I do know -- if the people in DC keep this crap up and go from Clownshow to real, credible threats we may all get to find out -- and wish we hadn't.

Mr. Denninger, recent author of the book Leverage: How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World, is the former CEO of MCSNet, a regional Chicago area networking and Internet company that operated from 1987 to 1998. MCSNet was proud to offer several "firsts" in the Internet Service space, including integral customer-specified spam filtering for all customers and the first virtual web server available to the general public. Mr. Denninger's other accomplishments include the design and construction of regional and national IP-based networks and development of electronic conferencing software reaching back to the 1980s.

He has been a full-time trader since 1998, author of The Market Ticker, a daily market commentary, and operator of TickerForum, an online trading community, both since 2007.

Mr. Denninger received the 2008 Reed Irvine Accuracy In Media Award for Grassroots Journalism for his coverage of the 2008 market meltdown.

 

 

 

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