From FISA to Obama to Trump to Where We Are Today

Barack Hussein Obama was our nation’s first black President.  He swept into office on the wings of a jubilant electorate that collectively felt a burst of optimism and possibility.  The significant achievement of a black American gaining the highest office in the land was momentous and a cause for celebration.  Never before in our nation’s history had a President come into the White House with a larger balance in his political capital account.  It was indeed a great moment for our nation.

Considering all of the possibilities that existed when Obama became President, it is tragic that essentially only the worst ones were realized.  Obama proved to be a lazy, incompetent, arrogant, partisan, and fundamentally dishonest President.  He wasted the greatest opportunity in history to address some entrenched problems faced by our country; choosing instead to pursue the ideological magical mystery tour agenda that he so carelessly assembled off his hip.  His shallow, irresponsible approach to governing and his undisciplined selection of key political appointees resulted in the unleashing of perhaps the most corrupt Administration in American history; the effects of which will stain this nation for generations to come.

It is easy to see why Obama came into office with such an approving glow from the people and from the media.  What is more difficult to comprehend is why that glow continued for so much of the electorate and the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media; even in the face of clear, objective proof that his façade of hope and change was little more than gauze wrapping on naked, personal aspirations.   How did this man escape the scrutiny of voters and media that his predecessors routinely dealt with and that his successor has been tortured by?

Donald Trump was cursed from the moment he became a serious candidate for President.  The Republican Party of which he was a part never accepted him as a bona fide member.  His Party had a long, established tradition of selecting their Presidential candidates from a list of those who had paid their dues to the Party in various ways; most notably by simply persevering in the Party for ages on end.  Trump had the audacity to come in from the private sector and claim that he was uniquely qualified to approach the Presidency with a fresh perspective.  This was anathema to the Republican Party leadership and they initially offered Donald Trump little or no respect and legitimacy.  Even after he won the nomination and became the only Republican option against Hillary Clinton, many in the Republican Party leadership did not openly or privately support this man.  It is a dirty little Republican secret that this sentiment still exists in the hearts of many long-time Republican leaders.  They manage to hide it away and keep it concealed simply because they love power and authority more than they despise their President.  But inwardly, they still look down on the President with a condescending air of superiority.  In this respect, they are not unlike the liberal elite that they so often demonize.

The mainstream media lives and works in a bubbly environment that they themselves perpetuate.  They do not write and report the news for me or you, the private citizens; they do so for themselves and to impress each other.  They are legitimately clueless about the real world in America today and are perfectly content to bath in their own self-professed wisdom while residing in their realm of imperial judgment.  In Barack Obama, they not only found an authentically historic President; but also one who was advocating the very policies that had been ingrained in them for their entire lives.  They were truly kindred spirits.  The liberal bias present in our nation’s collegiate institutions and the journalism industry rewards liberal group think, but ostracizes independent thinkers who may deign to disagree with popular opinion or wander over the political centerline.  This fundamental affection for Obama and all that he represented led most journalists to overlook the red flags that shot up from his Administration and led them to simply focus on those aspects of Obama that they deemed noteworthy.  They continued to glorify him in spite of clear indications that something was amiss.

I believe an aspect of the mainstream media’s irrational hatred of Trump is rooted in the fact that he defeated Hillary Clinton.  First and foremost, the mainstream media were exposed as incompetent and biased fools on the day that Trump defeated Clinton for the Presidency.  Not only had they guaranteed Trump’s obliteration at the hands of Clinton; they were simply unable to deal with the stunning miscalculation of Donald Trump’s victory.  They had really stepped in it and were too arrogant to admit it.  They have since spent their entire collective careers trying to somehow rationalize how they could have been so very wrong.   Part of this rationalization is the supposition that Trump is not worthy of the Presidency; that there is no way he should occupy the White House.  It must have been the powers that be who erred in judgment; certainly not them.  To them, the only reasonable explanation for Donald Trump is some kind of crazy, mixed up karma.

Regardless of what they might say, the mainstream media kinda…sorta…somehow…really likes an imperial Presidency.  They just demand that this Imperial President be a Democrat.  In spite of all his personal character flaws, John Kennedy was essentially deemed a Prince among men and King of America.  Jacky O was portrayed as a shining example of precisely what we all wanted in a First Lady.  The term Camelot was not applied to the Kennedys in jest.  That misplaced emotion was resurrected with Obama’s election.  The pomp and circumstance of all that was Obama was slurped up by his adoring minions and they never bothered themselves to even glimpse beneath the surface to see what gears were actually driving the Obama Administration.  And what about those gears?

Just as we are now seeing the exposure of the mainstream media’s complicity in the Trump Campaign/Presidency Russia Hoax; so is the interwoven fabric of deep corruption from within Obama’s Administrations coming to light.  Its historical significance notwithstanding, history will record Obama’s terms as President as one of, if not the, most corrupt Administration in our nation’s history.  Either Obama was a fool and incompetently asleep at the wheel; or else he was complicit in the gross abuse of power that occurred under his watch.  Either way, he is ultimately responsible for a group of unethical ideologues commandeering his Administration and trampling on their oaths of office.

There were several instances of the Obama Administration attempting to intimidate and influence journalists.  One of those instances involved ex-CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson.  Ms. Attkisson now operates as an independent journalist and is one of the most objective and hardworking writers on the planet.  She brings an honest, factual, and refreshingly objective opinion to all that she writes about and is a true professional.  Here is a timeline that she has constructed on how the Obama Administration abused its Administrative powers: https://sharylattkisson.com/2017/12/obama-era-surveillance-timeline/ .  As a follow-up to this timeline, here is another article that documents the many times that the mainstream media demonstrated the willful ignorance that I have earlier referred to: https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/475364-six-ways-we-were-blind-to-screaming-red-flags-about-government . 

If spite of all that we now know about how these people conducted their business and abused their power, there still remain credible (?) representatives of the Obama Administration running about claiming that their tenure had no hint of scandal or controversy.  The incredible thing to me is that even though Obama treated the media with contempt and suspicion, they continued to behave like groupies towards him.  He treated them like the fools they were.  Here is an outstanding article on the unholy nexus that existed between the Obama Administration and the mainstream media: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/12/we-now-know-perps-chumps-of-the-msm-pulitzer-prize-edition.php .

And if you are one of those still enthralled by the perceived magnificence of Obama and the detestability of Trump, just ask yourself this question:  All else being equal…what if Obama had come into office as a Republican and Trump had come into office as a Democrat?  Would Obama’s judgments remain infallible and would there be enough magazine covers in the world to hold Melania’s photos?

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I want to add a couple of quick comments regarding FISA.  The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was signed into law in 1978.  It was primarily created to give our nation a new and improved method of defense against foreign-inspired and sponsored terrorism.  The Chief Administrative entity in FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).  This is the body to which law enforcement Departments and Agencies present requests to spy upon foreign and domestic individuals in the effort to protect against acts of violence against our country.  Read more about the FISC here: https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/MIsc%2019%2002%20191217.pdf .  Since its inception, it is widely reported that the FISC has approved over 99 percent of the surveillance requests it has received. 

In response to the Department of Justice Inspector General’s scathing report on DOJ/FBI conduct under the Obama Administration and leading into the Trump Administration, the FISC sent the following letter to the DOJ/FBI: https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/MIsc%2019%2002%20191217.pdf .  It goes without saying that this letter reflects the FISC outrage at how DOJ/FBI officials handled their surveillance requests.  What is not reflected in this letter is the fact that the FISC was TWICE warned, prior to their approval, that the requests in question were questionable and without foundation.  These warnings came from Congressional Committees that were charged with the oversight of the Departments and Agencies making these requests.  And how did the FISC respond to these warnings?  They gave them a cursory brush-off and proceeded to approve them anyway.  The FISC assumed that the people making the requests were of good intention and were being honest about the details of their requests.   They were wrong.

FISA did not set up the FISC to rubber stamp every surveillance request that came to them.  They were supposed to INSURE that the requests were essential and represented the only way to obtain the information sought.  They were supposed to establish and practice exacting standards that would require these intrusive surveillance techniques to be used sparingly and only as a last resort.  They were the ultimate firewall between our individual rights and overzealous rogues in our government.  They failed to do this.  They were lied to, misled, and hoodwinked by DOJ/FBI personnel with bad intentions.  They were played.  And now that they have been exposed as the fools they were, they send out this four-page letter of protest.  This…is…lame.

FISA should be eliminated.  FISC should not exist.  Our government should not be given this ability to infringe upon the rights of its citizenry.  The people that we elect, and the people that they appoint, will never have a sufficient degree of integrity to wield this degree of power and authority.  We have freely given away a portion of our liberty to a body that will unquestionably abuse that liberty.