Dramatic Reversal: Democrats Now Trust FBI and CIA

Here are the numbers, a Gallop poll from 2022:

Glenn Greenwald comments on the dramatic change in the attitudes of Democrats:

So, here you see the FBI: 79% of Democrats think the FBI is doing an excellent or good job. For decades, distrust of the FBI and a view that it is a fundamentally corrupted organization pervaded and shaped federal politics. That is gone. Democrats worship the FBI. We report on those hearings all the time in the House where Democratic members of the House, of Congress, stand up and applaud the U.S. security state for censoring the Internet on the grounds that these agencies are benevolent, have nothing but the most patriotic and noble intentions and want to protect us from disinformation. So here you see the FBI with 79% trust among Democrats; among Independents, about half, 47%, and among Republicans, 29%.

So, essentially, the FBI is seen to a purely partisan end or political framework, ideological framework. They have immense powers, they operate in secrecy, they spy on Americans, they investigate crimes and the only people who really trust them are Democrats. Independents are split. Republicans overwhelmingly view them as corrupt.

It's even worse for the Department of Justice. Only 58% of Democrats trust the Department of Justice; 28% of Independents think the DOJ is doing a good job; only 24% of Republicans. So, imagine how much this is going to exacerbate that distrust. These remarkable and extraordinary prosecutions were brought during an election against the leading political opponent of the current government.

And then you have the CIA. When I tell you that opposition to the CIA has long been a central plank of left-liberal politics, I cannot overstate that case. To be on the left meant that it viewed the CIA as a malevolent institution forever, for decades, until 2016, and you see the reversal happen immediately. The reason for it is so disturbing. It's because the CIA – and the FBI – is where Russiagate came from, and liberals started recognizing validly that the CIA and the FBI and Homeland Security and the NSA and the Justice Department were on their side. They were political allies of the Democrats. And so now you have this remarkable reality that 69% of Democrats – 69% – think the CIA is doing a good or excellent job: 69% of Democrats. To be a Democrat is basically to mean that you place a lot of faith and trust in the CIA and even among this 30%, that won't say it; you barely can find opposition to the CIA in mainstream laughable discourse Turn on podcasts or YouTube programs of self-proclaimed leftists. I don't mean real leftists like the kind we have on our show, like the Black Revolutionary Network, but I mean, like the ones in the Democratic Party, the ones who follow Bernie Sanders and AOC. You will not hear a peep of meaningful denunciation of the CIA if they mention them at all. It's very much in passing with no passion, with no concern, because they don't consider the CIA menacing, because they know the CIA is their political ally. The CIA is not supposed to be anyone's political ally. They're not supposed to have anything to do with American politics and yet everyone knows they do. And they have to explain these percentages.

Here you see 50% of independents. So again, independents are split like they are with the FBI; 38% of Republicans have positive views of the CIA, largely from probably decades of Republican politics, the establishment weighing the hawkish wing of the Republican Party that has long viewed the CIA as an important ally. But that has cratered. And here you see the massive partisan split and how these agencies are viewed and the fact that a huge chunk of the country believes that these institutions are politically corrupted and fundamentally and irretrievably broken. It's a massive crisis of institutional authority in the United States. And it's aimed at the agencies that are now the ones responsible for trying to prove that the indictment of President Trump is illegitimate, invalid.

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Self-Censorship and Love

I am not on any political team. In my view, both major political parties are thoroughly corrupt. I am guided only by curiosity. It's amazing what happens to one's judgment when one renounces membership in all political tribes and their allied news media (which function as their respective PR departments). It allows you to see things that were previously invisible. Things that constitute evidence of dishonesty and hypocrisy and these things are ubiquitous, sparing no organization and no person.

It's unpleasant to have one's eyes opened like this, but that's part of the price of having access to an unfiltered stream of information. The other part is that you get to (have to) do the work to figure out what is believable. Here's a recent example: alleged corruption of Joe Biden. Many people glue themselves to left-leaning corporate media because they prefer to hear only good things about Biden. This media filtering generates a false consensus in their minds. It causes many people to conclude that Biden walks on water. It also causes many people to conclude that Trump's misconduct somehow exonerates Biden's potential corruption. There is no consensus, however.

Check out the House Oversight Committee's investigation. Lots and lots of evidence is detailed by the committee. One wouldn't know this information if one is intentionally closing one's eyes to everything other than left-leaning corporate media. I propose this thought experiment: In the Oversight Committee report, simply substitute "Trump Family" where ever you see "Biden Family" and ask yourself whether you would be deeply concerned about corruption. When I'm trying to figure out what is going on in the world, I don't give a shit about the Bidens or the Trumps. I'm concerned only about corruption, which inevitably hurts the American People.

One other thing about Biden's conduct bothers me immensely. It's a question we need to ask. Vivek Ramaswamy recently asked it:

The fact that we're sending hundreds of billions to Ukraine without Biden even once articulating why it advances U.S. national interests reeks of corruption. It's now fair game to ask whether the geopolitical disaster known as Hunter Biden has something to do with it. The bipartisan establishment, from @GovChristie to @NRO to @MSNBC, is attacking me for even asking the question. But just think independently for a moment.

[Emphasis added]. Have we been participating in the killing of 9,000 Ukrainian civilians and injuries to another 16,000 (and numerous other casualties of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers) for the reason that Joe Biden had a felt need to demonstrate his love and support for his son Hunter Biden? And see here and here. I ask this because I have not yet heard one reason why the U.S. should have gotten involved in a territorial dispute regarding the Donbas Region. Is the sanctity of the father-son bond the reason the U.S. refused a chance to resolve this war at the outset?

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About our Increasingly Visible Political Realignment.

Matt Taibbi has such a way with words. This is an excerpt from his most recent article, "Campaign 2024: Not Left Versus Right, But Aflluent Versus Everyone Else: The realignment of major parties away from blue against red and toward a rich versus poor dynamic is America's most undercovered political story."

"People like to say nothing matters anymore,” Greenberg said. “But the conversation that you’re not having actually does matter.” Try saying that one three times fast.

A lot of coverage of Campaign 2024 is going to be like this, in which aides, pundits, and pollsters speak like fridge-magnet haikus or Alan Greenspan pressers. There are now so many taboo subjects in American politics that even data journalists, whose job is to give us the cold hard facts, are forced to communicate in allusions and metaphors, because what’s happening can’t be discussed.

American politics has long been a careful truce, in which natural economic tensions were obscured by an elegantly phony two-party structure that kept urban and rural poor separate, nurtured a politically unadventurous middle class, and tended to needs of the mega-rich no matter who won. That system is in collapse. Voters are abandoning traditional blue-red political identities and realigning according to more explosive divisions based on education and income. As the middle class vanishes the replacement endgame emerges. A small pocket of very wealthy and very educated, for whom elections have until now mostly been ceremonial and to whom more fraught realities of the current situation are an annoyance, will move to one side. That’s your “15% strongly approve” group, the Marie Antoinettes who’ll go to the razor pledging loyalty to the regent, even if he’s a loon in a periwig, or Joe Biden.

The inevitable other constituency is just everyone else, which should be a larger demographic. The only reason polls are at 43-43 (or perhaps slightly in Biden’s disfavor) is because the other actor is Donald Trump. If Democrats should be panicking because they’re not trouncing an opponent whose biggest campaign events have been arraignments, it’s just as bad for Trump that he polls even with a man who’s a threat to walk into a propeller or carry a child into a forest every time he walks outside. Still, the abject horror Trump inspires among the Georgetown set may be his greatest political asset, and a reason the realignment seems to be proceeding even with him around."

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Pfizer Execs doing what they do . . .

Jimmy Dore and Bret Weinstein give these two lying Pfizer executives what they deserve for these big lies. Then, when you think it's winding down, Bret brings up Nuremberg Code See below).

One can make an extremely strong argument that American's didn't have informed consent when they were coerced to line up for the COVID vaccination. How important is informed consent? Here's what the Nuremberg Code specifies about informed consent in medical settings:

"The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential."

What does this mean? Here's the explanation offered by Evelyne Shutter in her article at the New England Journal of Medicine: "Fifty Years Later: The Significance of the Nuremberg Code."

This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

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