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What's Going on at the FBI?

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21–30 of 189 posts

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#21
post #8

It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.

> but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. As well as a stress test against half the voting population that thinks an authoritarian president is peachy and somehow patriotic.

Half of the voting population were so fed up with the economy that they went with the nuclear option.

It’s just that most of them have not read history and none of them have lived through war or fascism to understand what they are signing up for.

They will all learn their lesson.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#22
post #8

It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.

I don't think it's anywhere near that simple.

Organizations are ongoing processes, constantly in flux, not structures erected in the past. Like a river, you can never step in the same organization twice. Like ghosts and money, they only exist in people's minds; they consist of belief in them, hyperstitiously.

The democracy the FBI is sworn to protect has turned on it. What is left for it to protect? The laws handed down from an older, wiser time? Perhaps the time of Senator McCarthy? Or Jim Crow? What if today's president pardons common criminals and today's Congress legalizes their crimes—will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws?

You can count on the FBI to protect itself, but never believe that what it is protecting is democracy.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your perspective. Many people would consider someone like Fauci non-partisan and more of a competent career expert, but Trumps people think he is very political and purge people like that. At the FBI they purge people who are probably quite competent and not particularly partisan but happened to work on Trumps case, which is mostly about sending a message I think not do much about finding the right employe…

>Fauci non-partisan and more of a competent career expert Then why did Fauci lie to Congress and got the Biden's pre-emptive pardon?

He didn't lie to Congress, and he got a preemptive pardon because Trump is vindictive and would 100% have ordered the DOJ to go after Fauci in any way possible.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#25
post #2

Wild to see a bloodless coup in action.

What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.

If you are elected on a platform of a coup (illegal reform), it doesn't make what you do any more legal. Some of what Trump is doing is not illegal, but some of it appears to be illegal.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#26
post #2

Wild to see a bloodless coup in action.

What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.

What makes it a coup is that Trump is acting completely illegally. He was elected president, not dictator. He does not have the legal authority to create a new government department, DOGE, to appoint Musk as its head without Senate advice and consent, and to give it full power over all other agencies.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.

What makes it a coup is that Trump is acting completely illegally. He was elected president, not dictator. He does not have the legal authority to create a new government department, DOGE, to appoint Musk as its head without Senate advice and consent, and to give it full power over all other agencies.

[flagged]

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#29
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fauci non-partisan and more of a competent career expert Then why did Fauci lie to Congress and got the Biden's pre-emptive pardon?

He didn't lie to Congress, and he got a preemptive pardon because Trump is vindictive and would 100% have ordered the DOJ to go after Fauci in any way possible.

https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114270/documents/...

"Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH, told Congress in May that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.""

which we know is a blatant lie - see NIH EcoHealth Alliance Wuhan grants (which even had the "Human Subjects Included" checkbox checked. As a bonus read on how they made there the coronavirus which was successfully infecting and killing mice engineered to have human cells).

See also https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-dr-fauci... and https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-dr-fauci...

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#30
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is, how do you even counter the injected rot? If they demand loyalty tests and infest your institutions how is it countered? do the other side also have to do the same (assuming they have the opportunity)? All feels incredibly illiberal. I hope for the best that the oaths of office specific to these institutions hold.

How is this different from any previous president? Isn't the very reason that the puppets "need replacing" (according to the president) tell you that they are of the wrong (previous president's) political flavor? Honest question, I'm not from US, but on the surface it just looks like more of the same thing that has always been happening? Except with way more media attention?

I think it’s unprecedented for every FBI agent to fill up a questionnaire to admit whether they worked on a case where the president himself was an active participant.
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