OK, where do I start?

We live in an insane world. It got even more insane on November 9, 2016. As the year went by the crazy train just got crazier and crazier.

This week, the crazy got turned up to 11.

My crazy goes up to 11!

Devin Nunes, Republican head of the House Intelligence Committee, recused himself from the Russia investigation as the result of a Keystone Kops episode during which he was secretly snuck into the White House by low-level White House officials. He was then shown doctored material which purportedly showed that President Obama had wiretapped Trump during the campaign. The following day, Nunes went to the White House to report to Trump he had proof Obama had wiretapped him.

I know this because you told me.

The only problem was he was caught in the lie immediately and was made to look like a fool. Even though after this debacle he “recused himself” from the Russia probe, he apparently is now  back on the job.

Fast forward to now. Nunes’s staff has supposedly created a “secret memo” showing how the DOJ and the FBI have a “Secret Society” of FBI agents plotting to take down the Trump Presidency.” Nunes hasn’t read the memo and he can’t release it because it contains “sensitive classified intelligence.” But it’s explosive!

It’s so sensitive he hasn’t read it himself, but his staff has read it — because they wrote it. Does this mean his staff has a higher security clearance than he does?

(Are you following this? Let’s not always see the same hands.)

The Democrats have read it. They’ve also read all the other intelligence material behind it. They apparently also have higher security clearances than the Republican head of the House Intelligence Committee. They wrote their own memo pointing out how fucking stupid the other memo is.

What do the Republicans do? They vote to release the Republican memo, even though they supposedly haven’t read it, but refuse to allow the Democrats memo to be released. Because it was only written to “obscure the truth.”  They are doing this with a straight face.

MEMO WARS! Two memos go in, but only one gets released.

So, Republicans are trying to discredit:

1. FBI Director, James Comey. A Republican
2. Assistant Director of the DOJ, Rob Rosenstein. A Republican who was given the job by George W. Bush. Another Republican.
3. The Special Counsel, Robert Mueller. A Republican.
4. Robert McCabe, the assistant FBI Director. A Republican.
5. THE FBI! A hotbed of liberal communists if there ever was one. Not sure, but I think that more than a few Republicans are working there.
6. The Department of Justice. No Republicans to see here, move along.

Is there a “Secret Society” in the FBI?  This came from an email from an FBI agent and his girlfriend. It was a joke that referenced a Vladimir Putin beefcake calendar that he was going to send to co-workers as a joke. If you read the email, you can see it’s a joke. It’s called “sarcasm.” Something that seems to elude Republicans in Congress these days.

You get a calendar! You get a calendar! Everybody in the secret society gets a calendar!

But here’s the thing. They’re doing it! They think they will get away with it. They have gone beyond even Alex Jones’s levels of crazy. Fox News is eating it up. Real secret societies must be going nuts right about now. I can just imagine the latest meeting of the Illuminati, the Templars and the Tri-Lateral Commission.

ILLUMINATI: Have you guys been watching the news lately?

TEMPLARS: Yeah, WTF?

TRI-LATERAL COMMISSION: These guys are seriously fucked up.

Back in the 1950’s a Senator named Joe McCarthy held hearings during which he held up a folder declaring he had proof of hundreds of American citizens being Communists. He ruined hundreds, if not thousands of lives. The names were just made up. They were randomly picked from the phone book.

He was finally brought down by two things:

1 – A hearing where the lawyer for the Secretary of the Army, Joseph N. Welch, faced him down and said. “Senator, you’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir at long last? Have you no sense of decency?”

We need to ask that question again.

And again.

And again.

2 – An episode of Edward R. Murrow’s show “See It Now.” In it he completely took down McCarthy. .

The show ended with this.

---

“No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Good night, and good luck.”

Any of this sound familiar?

Good night all, and damn … we really could use some good luck.

Well,  they just released the memo. Here’s a review.

“The Nunes memo is a book report prepared by someone who didn’t read the book.”

Chris Hayes, an American political
commentator, journalist, and author.

THANK YOU to The New Yorker!

And The New Yorker released the memo.