Tulsi’s Tempest

“Then imitate the action of the tiger. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.Then lend the eye a terrible aspect”

—Henry V Shakespeare

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At a candlelit table at the White House, a recognizable figure whose unmistakable hair cast shadows in the flicker of the candles upon the wall, was reading a piece of paper that had just been handed to him by an aide. The paper described news of an ambitious rival politician and his interactions with a foreign government. What was revealed on the paper seemed impossible. The unspoken rule of Washington was that the people in power are always in a unique subset of society. Political differences have always existed, but the politicians had an understanding that they were all above the fray. The words on the paper told a different story. This was a betrayal of the highest degree. A political rival had gone out of his way to attempt, in secrecy, to destroy the president. The evidence was clear. A friend, an ally in the past, a person of the highest offices in the land, had turned on the president and had attempted to undermine his political aspirations and success.

“Mr. President, what shall we do with this information?”

A quiet stare came from across the table.

“He wanted me arrested. He wanted me banished from the political landscape. What do you suppose I might want to do?”

The president crumpled the paper in his hands and walked to the fireplace in the dining room. Standing with his hand on the mantle and the crumpled paper in his hand, he looked to his Secretary.

“Ruin him.”

The president tossed the paper into the fire and walked out into the dark hallway of the White House. Andrew Jackson had been betrayed by his own Vice President, and he was about to get revenge.

John C.Calhoun would resign the Vice Presidency under duress, and supposedly for a Senate seat where he would continue to undermine the president’s agenda, but the betrayal during the First Seminole War had destroyed the relationship between the men, and Jackson went to work, making sure that Calhoun would never be president.

Washington has always been filled with scandal and political maneuvering. Alexander Hamilton famously ruined his career by publishing the Reynolds Pamphlet that disclosed his affair while he was the Secretary of the Treasury. Daniel Sickles shot Francis Scott Key’s son Phillip over an affair with the Congressman’s wife. James Blaine lost his election to Grover Cleveland in 1884 because of the rumored affair disclosed in the Mulligan letters. Gary Heart, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards all suffered at the hands of the cutthroat ways of Washington. Backstabbings and betrayals aren’t exclusively limited to sex, but in a world that hides under the veil of erudite morality, sex has always been the secret weapon of political rivals to destroy their opponents.

Over the weekend, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard disclosed a declassified report that alleges that Obama-era intelligence officials and elements of the "deep state" within the U.S. intelligence community manufactured or manipulated evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election to undermine President Trump. She specifically accused them of leaking false information and orchestrating a "treasonous conspiracy" that included the promotion of unverified claims about Trump's Russia ties, with calls for the prosecution of figures like former President Obama. Gabbard seems to be referring to the now-infamous Steele Dossier. A collection of MI6 intelligence documents that was released over the summer of 2016, running up to the election.

While the dossier was not created at the direct order of any government entity, it was initially funded during the Republican primaries by private opposition research commissioned by longstanding Washington political insiders to undermine the Trump candidacy. Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C.-based research firm founded by former journalists Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, served as the primary contractor. Fusion GPS subcontracted Christopher Steele for the Russia-focused portion due to his expertise in Russian intelligence.

The initial phase started in October 2015. Fusion GPS was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site funded by Republican donor Paul Singer, who was a supporter of Marco Rubio and his candidacy, to conduct general opposition research on Trump and other GOP candidates. This lasted until May 2016 and did not involve Steele or produce the dossier; it focused on public records and domestic issues, with no Russia-specific allegations overlapping into the final reports.

During the Second, Democrat funded phase, the Free Beacon ceased its funding. Fusion GPS then approached Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. In April 2016, Perkins Coie attorney Marc Elias directed Fusion GPS to continue the research on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC, specifically pivoting to Trump's international ties, including Russia. Fusion GPS paid Orbis, Christopher Steele's private investigatory firm, approximately $168,000 to compile the reports. Overall, the Clinton campaign and DNC reported spending $12.4 million on Perkins Coie for legal services, a portion of which funded this work.

All of that money and time generated 17 intelligence documents and reports about Donald Trump and his domestic and international dealings. After the Democrats took over the funding, the report quickly began to focus on Trump’s supposed ties to Russia. The Democrats believed that the best way to undermine the candidacy of Donald Trump was to tie him to the enemy. They believed that by making him look like he was an asset of a foreign government, and particularly a foreign government that was our greatest adversary, Trump could be vanquished as a rival — left for dead in the ash heaps of failed populist candidacies like William Jennings Bryant and Huey Long.

As a point of context, there is a strange infatuation with Russia in Washington. Whereas the rest of America understood the Cold War to have ended after the fall of the Soviet Union, the minions and bureaucrats of Washington still operate as if the Soviet Union never died. They have the sense that if they can pin Russia as the enemy or conspirator in nefarious global interactions, the American people will trip over themselves on their way to get on the “I hate Russia” bandwagon. This disdain of Russia by the Washingtonians has to be understood in order to comprehend the atmosphere that 2016 Donald Trump was walking into, and why the dossier had any traction, despite its salacious and fantastical nature.

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When the report was finally leaked by Buzzfeed, it seemed to be an overwhelming and damning description of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia and his proclivities for twisted sexual fetishes. The report was filled with allegations of all types, including the most surreal scenes of Moscow prostitutes pissing on Ritz-Carlton beds while Donald Trump watched from the sidelines.

From the Pages of the Report:

“However, there were other aspects to TRUMP's engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit TRUMP's personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable 'kompromat' (compromising material) on him. According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP's (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.”

The report continued, in an attempt to validate itself, by describing witnesses to the event.

“The Moscow Ritz Carlton [episode was] confirmed by Source E, who said that s/he and several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel, when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story. Speaking separately in June 2016, Source B (the former top-level Russian intelligence officer) asserted that TRUMP's unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished.”

The dossier was designed to undermine the candidacy of President Trump. It was intended to cast aspersions of doubt upon his character and his legitimacy as a candidate. The old Washington trick of pushing an unverified story out and making the accused chase down the damage it caused was clearly the motivation for all of it. The Washingtonians were uninterested in seeing anything resembling a “President Trump.”

Keep in mind that in the summer of 2016, Hillary Clinton was just a few months short of her inevitable coronation. The press, the Washington insiders, and the Democratic Party all touted the inevitable victory. Only deplorable fools would vote for Donald Trump. And while their arrogance painted the pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, the insiders wanted to leave nothing to chance. They were going to make sure that Trump finished with a meager showing come election night. They were aghast that the Republican Party had ever allowed for a fair election during the primaries. Hadn’t they seen how to handle the populists? The Democrats had dispatched of Bernie with their Super Delegate system, and the Republicans were taking extraordinary chances by allowing the people to select Donald Trump as their candidate. The insiders in Washington were confident that Trump would lose to such an exemplary candidate as Hillary Clinton, but they wanted to be sure. Besides the current need to destroy Trump for the 2016 election, they needed to make an example of him and his candidacy to ensure that no one like him ever had aspirations for the office in the future.

Story after leaked story made their way to the mainstream press, and with each new layer of sensationalism, Donald Trump ensconced a fierce devotion from his supporters. It was all “fake news,” and nothing that the Washingtonians did would stick. Their usual success by salaciousness had no grab among the Trumpians. By election night, the glass ceiling of the Javits Convention Center remained unshattered, and Donald Trump was elected the forty-fifth president of the United States. Panic ensued, and in the interminably long, peaceful transition of power, the outgoing Obama administration moved into high gear to leave an unnavigable pathway of pitfalls for the incoming Trump team to walk straight into.

Admittedly, the Trump team was ill-prepared for the transition. They had underestimated their chances of winning and were behind the eight ball on hiring the tens of thousands of positions that an electoral victory creates. The Obama team and the Washington insiders used that lack of preparedness to their full advantage. Casting aspersions on the validity of the election results and linking Russia to interference in the outcome. By the time President Trump took the oath of office in January of 2017, the trap had already been triggered.

The Deep State Is Real

The report that contained declassified information that was released over the weekend by Ms. Gabbard is truly earth-shattering. The implications of what she is suggesting happened during the 2016 election and the subsequent thwarting of President Trump’s first term are nothing short of the most scandalous revelations in government from this generation. The idea that a sitting president would be in on the undermining of a future president, to the point at which Donald Trump was impeached over the scandal, and his administration’s objectives destroyed by the constant bombardment of false accusations and congressional hearings, is unheard of in the annals of scandals in that terrible town.

There is no hyperbole in the statement that the actions of the Deep State in Washington, led by President Obama himself, are watershed moments in American history. The actions of the outgoing administration, if not prosecuted for its crimes, will decide the fate of our democratic institutions. If this is left, as so many other scandals in Washington are, unchecked, then the veil is totally lifted on the idea that the people have any say in the government that proclaims to be their representative. If what Ms. Gabbard says is true, and her documentation seems to support that it is, then what Washington has done to ruin the institutions of democracy in our nation is nothing short of what she suggests: treason.

I have long written that America lives in a fantasy about its government. The constitution that so many wave vigorously when things seem to be in defiance of what the people believe they live under is truly a dead document. There is nothing about our republic that remains related to that parchment and its desired functions. What has become of our nation is one that is dominated by a deeply embedded bureaucracy that operates autonomously from the elected officials. That strange governmental relationship with the people has existed for the last 70 years, and it is loathsome. The thespians that we elect rarely have an impact on the agenda of the Blob. The cubicle dwellers tolerate their existence and the show they have to put on every so often at Capitol Hill, but when they return to their desks, their agendas are clear. Keep the machine running and never, ever let the people have a say in it.

Our country is cracking under the weight of the bureaucracy’s devotion to its agenda. Our city streets are only a facsimile of glory of what was once the wealthiest country in the world. Our people toil for ever-deflating dollars, while their politicians go about their business, feckless to fight against the depth of the deep state. But the losers in Washington love it. They have found a place where the ethics of real life are evicted. There are no consequences for their performance. They get raises year after year and live a life so detached from the streets of Los Angeles or the boarded-up Main Streets of Nowhere, Nebraska that they look out across the fruited plain with unfettered disdain for the people who live there. These elite monsters throw performative art dinner parties with breast-milk-shakes and vaginally depicted art pieces hanging above the tables, and they think nothing of it. They are morally bankrupt; their ethics and supposed responsibility towards leadership show it. So getting away with treason seems like child's play compared to the darkness they endeavor in on a daily basis. Strange sex, infatuation with death, unlimited supplies of money and fame are the rewards for the Washington life. Consequences for the betrayal of a president is the stuff for mere mortals, the high priests of depravity of this moment need not bother themselves with such mundanities.

So when Tulsi Gabbard stood up last week to say that something is terribly wrong in our institutions and the proof is the 2016 elections, the people of the country listen, but the high scoffers of Washington laugh with a steely chuckle. To the citizen this is a much bigger deal than any other scandal that has engulfed the political class since the CIA murdered Jack Kennedy on a warm November morning, but to the court eunuchs of our era, Gabbard is a side show, a laughing stock best used as entertainment.

The American people know that something is terribly wrong in Washington. Every new story that comes from the powerful has become unsurprising. They know the hour for America is nearing midnight, while they watch their overlords dance debaucherously towards a republics extinction. The people of the nation understand that what Tulsi is saying is that we either deal with this darkness, or we will never live as free men and women again. Yet they watch helplessly as the sybarites inside the ball room are too busy satisfying their pudenda to notice that the empire is dying.

The Dossier

If we are ever to free ourselves of this bureaucratic imprisonment, we have to understand what transpired in 2016. The timeline of events, the actors, and the motives are all germane to the future of the republic. It’s all complex and tangled up with the dishonesty of the media to report what really went on, so most people have a faint understanding of what happened. Add to that the politicization of the events, and the truth has been lost in a maze of opinions and half-truths. I have created a timeline of the events, because without it, the deep state and President Obama’s involvement all get lost in Trump's personality, Access Hollywood tapes, and screaming lesbians with glasses on the floor during election night. This is the best I could assemble of the key players and actions taken during the summer, fall, and transition months of President Trump’s first election and subsequent inauguration to office. This list was assembled with the help of internet and AI research.

• Late 2015–Spring 2016: U.S. allies (e.g., UK via GCHQ, Germany, Estonia, Australia) shared intelligence with the Obama administration about suspicious contacts between Trump associates and Russian operatives. This laid the groundwork for U.S. investigations, which critics claim exaggerated ties to hinder Trump's campaign and transition.

• July 31, 2016: The FBI launches "Crossfire Hurricane," a counterintelligence investigation into possible Trump campaign-Russia coordination, triggered by Australian intelligence on adviser George Papadopoulos (not the Steele dossier, though it later informed parts). This probe targeted associates like Page, Manafort, and Flynn, setting the stage for transition disruptions.

• August 31–September 9, 2016: DNI James Clapper directs an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on cyber threats to U.S. elections, involving CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS. Gabbard's 2025 report claims this was manipulated to focus on Russian favoritism toward Trump, undermining his legitimacy before the election.

• October 2016: The FBI and DOJ obtain a FISA warrant to monitor Carter Page's communications, citing probable cause he was acting as a Russian agent (renewed in January 2017). Critics, including the 2019 IG report and Gabbard's findings, argue this relied on uncorroborated Steele dossier elements, thwarting Page's role in the transition and fueling broader scrutiny.

• November 8, 2016: Trump wins the election.

• November 10, 2016: In a White House meeting, Obama warns Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as national security adviser, citing Flynn's past performance at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Trump proceeds anyway; this is later cited as early interference.

• November 17, 2016: Trump names Flynn national security adviser (no Senate confirmation needed), but ongoing FBI scrutiny of Flynn's Russia ties (from Crossfire Hurricane) looms.

• December 7–9, 2016: Intelligence officials draft PDBs on Russian election interference, assessing GRU hacks and efforts to undermine election credibility. A Principals Committee meeting, chaired by Susan Rice, agrees on sanctions and expulsions. Gabbard claims this escalated post-election to sabotage Trump's Russia reset.

• December 9, 2016: Obama tasks the IC with a comprehensive report on Russian interference, due January 2017, including hacking and leaks—framed by critics as a "roadmap" for anti-Trump probes.

• December 12, 2016: IC officials expedite the ICA draft on Russian influence, focusing on Moscow's pro-Trump efforts, which Gabbard alleges were designed to taint the incoming administration.

• December 22, 2016: Plans finalized for ICA rollout, with briefings to Obama, Trump, and Congress—potentially influencing perceptions of Trump's team's legitimacy.

• December 29, 2016: Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats, seizes compounds, and imposes sanctions for election interference. Flynn calls Kislyak (intercepted by U.S. intelligence), urging no escalation; critics claim the sanctions timing forced Flynn into compromising talks.

• December 30, 2016: Putin declines retaliation; Trump praises him on X

• January 5, 2017: Obama meets with Biden, Comey, Yates, Rice, Brennan, and Clapper on Russian interference. After, Obama, Biden, Comey, Yates, and Rice discuss Flynn's Kislyak calls, potential Logan Act issues, and limiting info sharing with Flynn. Gabbard and Trump allies call this "treasonous," claiming it plotted Flynn's ouster; participants insist it was about security.

• January 6, 2017: IC releases ICA concluding Putin ordered interference to help Trump. Trump dismisses it; briefings include a dossier summary for Trump.

• January 12, 2017: Washington Post leaks Flynn-Kislyak calls, citing Obama officials—intensifying pressure.

• January 19, 2017: Yates, Comey, Brennan, and Clapper debate briefing Trump on Flynn calls; most favor it.

• January 20, 2017: Trump was inaugurated. Yates stays as acting AG at Trump's request.

• January 22, 2017: The Wall Street Journal reports the FBI is scrutinizing Flynn's calls.

• January 24, 2017: FBI interviews Flynn at the White House; he lies about Kislyak discussions.

• January 26, 2017: Yates warns White House counsel Don McGahn about Flynn's vulnerability to Russian blackmail due to lies; White House takes no immediate action.

• February 13, 2017: Flynn resigns amid leaks and pressure, citing misleading Pence on calls.

• March 1, 2017: Reports reveal Sessions met Kislyak twice in 2016 (undisclosed during confirmation), prompting scrutiny tied to Russia probe.

• March 2, 2017: Sessions recuses from Russia investigations, hampering Trump's control over the probe—critics blame Obama-era leaks and pressure.

• May 17, 2017: Robert Mueller appointed special counsel, expanding probes into Flynn, Manafort, Papadopoulos, and others, stemming from Obama-era investigations.

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Exit Jeff Sessions

One of the biggest voices for Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign was Jeff Sessions, the senator from Alabama. Sessions and Trump were friends, and it was no secret that the Senator was a huge advocate for Mr. Trump. Sessions was nominated as Attorney General after the 2016 election victory, and he was praised by the MAGA die-hards as one of the better cabinet choices that Trump had made. Sessions had long been a voice of sanity when it came to fiscal responsibility and the influence of the bureaucracy in Washington. When President-elect Trump nominated him, it seemed that he had been placed in a key position that would help “drain the swamp.” But the relationship between the president and AG Sessions got shaky fast. By March 2, 2017, Sessions had recused himself from any oversight of the Russia Investigations. Responding to the Department of Justice’s request for his recusal, Sessions said that he would not oversee any part of the investigations for fear of a conflict of interest.

Sessions had been accused of conspiring with the Russians during the campaign. Reports revealed he had met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign—once in July 2016 at the Republican National Convention and once in September 2016 in his Senate office—despite stating during his January 10, 2017, confirmation hearing that he had no communications with Russians about the campaign. The DOJ, which cited federal regulations (28 CFR 45.2) requiring officials to step aside from matters where they have a personal or political relationship that could reasonably question their impartiality. Sessions himself emphasized that his involvement in the Trump campaign as a surrogate necessitated the move, framing it as a proactive step to ensure the investigation's integrity.

In hindsight now, and in light of Gabbard’s discussions on the events, once Sessions was out of the way, the Deep State was off to the races. Sessions was neutralized, and by the following November, he tendered his resignation at the request of the President for his lack of action, and for leaving the president without a loyal voice in the investigation.

The Mueller Investigation

With any meaningful voices from the Trump side of the argument removed, Congress appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to head the investigation into the scandal. After two years of digging, the report was released in April of 2019. While President Trump was technically cleared of any charges of obstruction of justice, there were 37 indictments, including prominent figures in the Trump sphere like General Michael Flynn, Rodger Stone, and Trump Campaign Chair Paul Manafort. The report said that the Russians had interfered with the election by stealing emails from the Clinton campaign and hijacking social media, and creating an online atmosphere favorable to Trump.

Mueller outlined 10 episodes of potential obstruction by Trump, including efforts to fire FBI Director James Comey, pressure on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself from the Russia probe, attempts to curtail the special counsel's investigation, and directives to White House Counsel Don McGahn to create a false record denying Trump ordered Mueller's firing. However, the report explicitly stated: "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." Mueller deferred to Congress or future prosecutors, citing a DOJ policy against indicting a sitting president.

It was all there for anyone to see. Trump was on the periphery of guilt, and now it was up to Congress to finish the job. Mueller had indicated that Trump was in on the heist, but his guilt was framed by his surrounding surrogates, who were taken down one by one by a rotten Department of Justice.

Trump was impeached in 2019 after the Democrats won the midterms, and it acted like a fast-acting cancer upon his presidency. Everything was thwarted by the scandal, and it seemed clear that Trump had been stymied by the Deep State. President Obama and his team had set the trap, and Trump was deep in the mire of it all, drowning by the day. If President Trump and his team were to ever get close to a proximity of wrongdoing by the former administration or the minions left behind in a botched transition of power, something new would come up, and Trump would have to pivot away from time spent on his exoneration and work on the next crisis. By the winter of 2019, Trump and his team seemed close to getting to the truth. By the spring, it had taken a very backseat to Covid, and all the lingering questions that had been forced to remain unresolved about the scandal, were hanging as doubts as people went to the polls on a November Tuesday.

Die-hard Trumpians have insisted that this scandal is the most important element of any current Trump accomplishments. They have been saying for a long time that if President Trump does not act upon these findings, then the United States as we know it will be lost forever. I tend to agree with that sentiment.

While some have insisted that this should now mean that things like the Epstein files and other less meaningful indices of a lying government be dropped, I think that none of this can be separated from the others. All of these actions by the government indicate that it is out of control. It has stopped listening to the politicians, and while it may have done so behind closed doors in the past, both the Russia Hoax and the Epstein files demonstrate that the government is now willing to walk brazenly into their deceit because they are wildly above the law. This is a very precarious moment in the history of our nation. What Tulsi is telling us is that the President and his team want to try and restore the people-driven government, but that they are up against some terrible forces.

I don’t have a lot of faith that much will come from this because the government’s track record of prosecuting anyone within the beltway of DC is abysmal. No one ever really sees justice if they harm others. It’s why I have argued in long formats that the Epstein files are a proxy for more than just an individual’s crimes. This case is on a magnitude scale unimagined in the timeline of the United States.

All of it serves as a terrible reminder that the elections of 2024 put in place a fraction of the voices that are necessary to dismantle a government that hates the people it supposedly is there to serve. Money, power, and sex have been the only items of want in Washington for far too long. The departing Obama administration proved that it believed itself above the law. From Gabbard’s memo on Friday:

• On December 7, 2016, after the election, talking points were prepared for DNI James Clapper stating, “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome.”

• On December 9, 2016, President Obama’s White House gathered top National Security Council Principals for a meeting that included James Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, and others, to discuss Russia.

• After the meeting, DNI Clapper’s Executive Assistant sent an email to IC leaders tasking them with creating a new IC assessment “per the President’s request” that details the “tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.” It went on to say, “ODNI will lead this effort with participation from CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS.”

• Obama officials leaked false statements to media outlets, including The Washington Post, claiming, “Russia has attempted through cyber means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election.”

• On January 6, 2017, a new Intelligence Community Assessment was released that directly contradicted the IC assessments that were made throughout the previous six months.

The Memo Continues: This was politicized intelligence that was used as the basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump’s victory, the years-long Mueller investigation, two Congressional impeachments, high-level officials being investigated, arrested, and thrown in jail, heightened US-Russia tensions, and more.

“The issue I am raising is not a partisan issue. It is one that concerns every American. The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government. Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people. Their egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic. No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it. As such, I am providing all documents to the Department of Justice to deliver the accountability that President Trump, his family, and the American people deserve.” - DNI Tulsi Gabbard

National Suicide

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”

― Abraham Lincoln

There are many moments I would prefer to toss my hands up and go fishing. This government has become a leviathan that devours any good that comes against it. I don’t know if it can be beaten back. I look at the work that Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Kennedy have been doing, who are arguably the most effective cabinet selections to date, and I wonder how they get up each day to face it again. The people they are at war with are the invaders from within that Lincoln warned about. They have made an atmosphere where national suicide seems to be the only trajectory available. Ms. Gabbard deserves a lot of credit for taking this on. Her existence in Washington is a threat to the powers at be. The early responses from within the inner circle of DC are that what Ms. Gabbard is trying to expose is off-limits. Out-of-touch bumblers like Senator Tom Cotton, a deeply swampy swamper, quickly defended his buddy club by proposing that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence be slashed. While I applaud the shrinking of government, I have a sneaking suspicion that the timing is directly related to what Ms. Gabbard is attempting to expose.

Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut, has accused Gabbard of “rehashing decade-old false claims about the Obama Administration” in an attempt to “change the subject.” He continued, “Baseless accusations of treason are unfortunately par for the course for this Director of National Intelligence, but that doesn’t make them any less damaging and unacceptable. The IC leaders in 2016 understood that they took an oath to the Constitution, not President Trump. I wish Director Gabbard could say the same.”

And herein lies the biggest difference between the people of this country and those who supposedly govern them in Washington. The politicians and the bureaucrats actually believe that the story that they generated through all of their committee-ing and media narrating is the real story. They live life in a fantasy land where they write the story as they wish it, not as it actually is. The town is made up of devoted ideologues who have no interest in making a government that responds to the citizens. They have lived life too long in the confines of the Beltway. They operate as if the theater they create every day is the only real story. Meanwhile, beyond the Beltway, the real American lives in an entirely different reality. I think that Congressman Himes actually believes that John Brennan and James Clapper are the good guys. He thinks, and not just because he’s a Democrat, that Barack Obama should be above the law because of what he means for the people of Washington. It’s why they still write the story as if Russia is the greatest enemy of our nation, and why bombing Iran is more important than the hundreds of thousands of deaths by fentanyl that our people have suffered from. The political class and the millions of minions who make up this corrupt government live their lives within the court of the kingdom, and they are not about to surrender that cozy life. They have no interest in learning about the grievances of the people, because to them, the people are the problem. What Director Gabbard is pushing into is a space untouched by the establishment, and it terrifies them. She is making their story untrue, and that is unacceptable to the powerful.

The spiderweb that entrapped Donald Trump in 2016 is not easy to destroy. As Charlie Kirk pointed out yesterday on the Tucker Carlson podcast, at this same six month marker in the first Trump term, the President had been completely neutralized, with a sidelined Attorney General, a DOJ who was actively and aggressively pursuing a phony story and what they had done by propagating it on a daily basis with the willing help of an accomplice media clouded the remainder of his first term. All that Trump had hoped to accomplish, the will of the people who had elected him, the desires to restore America to a government governed by the people had been tangled up by the very swamp he wanted to drain, and you could almost hear the Vincent Price style laugh from Thriller from the halls of Congress as Trump left town on Inauguration Day 2021.

If 2016 Trump proved anything, it’s that there’s no easy way to undo the web of deception that dominates the institutions of Americas Capitol. Maybe it’s because of her time in the military, or from a life rooted deep in conviction and love for America, but Tulsi knows that battles start to be won when bold warriors take a swipe at the enemy with their swords. Ms. Gabbard has clarity on who the enemy is and has taken a mighty swing. I hope she connects with the strand that can destroy it.