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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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Does anyone have the whole story on Mike Pompeo? This is what I've gathered so far:

  • Tucker Carlson says

    He's threatening me. He's in my car. I'll never with my dog sitting next to him, I'll never forget this. And I said, are you really saying that to reveal that the US government had a role in the murder of a democratically elected president, to say that out loud, that's the crime? Mike Pompeo was plotting to murder Julian Assange, who's never even been charged with a crime in the United States as CIA director. That's illegal. You're not allowed. Federal employees are not allowed to just kill people they don't like. Okay.

  • on the all in pod Trump heavily implies that Mike Pompeo told him not to fulfil his campaign promise of releasing the JFK files, because "we are not ready"

    Chamath: I'm sorry I have to ask I have to ask one question sir, when you got elected in 20 in the 2016 election you said the first thing or one of the things you wanted to do was release the JFK file, and then you said later "I saw it and I just I wasn't really ready to do it" and then I saw a clip where you changed your mind and you said "I think we're ready to see this file" and I'm just curious what's in it

    Trump: I actually did do it, uh, I released a lot, as you know, but when it came to the whole thing, I was hit by some people that worked for me, that are great people, that you would respect, and they asked me not to do it, and I'm saying "why, tell me why" and they said "sir I think it needs a little more time" and I released a lot but I said if they feel so strongly, I respect the people, and would would have done that again, but this time I'm just going to do it

    Jason: RFK says the CIA killed his his um uncle do you believe that

    Trump: well this wasn't CIA that asked me but I think CIA was probably behind it [editor: clarification, by "behind it" they mean the guy who told Trump "we are not ready" - probobly Pompeo , this is not Trump admitting the CIA killed JFK] but they didn't, they would have preferred that I not release the rest of it, so we we did give quite a bit, uh, it's going to be done early on a lot of people people want to see that and whatever it may say I won't say, I sort I have an idea, but uh whatever it is it'll be very interesting for people to see and we're going to have to learn from it

    Jason: promise US you'll come back again Mr

    Trump: you know there are other things we're going to release too, we're going to release

    Jason: really like what what else do you got

    Trump: we'll talk to you about it off camera [editor: it's a rolodex of dick picks of world leaders from epsteins island ]

    Jason: aliens?

    Trump: by the way I generally speaking, and there are reasons not to release certain things obviously, but I generly you know it's transparency and I think it's important that we release that, and there are other things too ,there are other things that you know about, but people more than anything else they want the JFK files we're going to release that immediately

  • Assange points out

    it is now a matter of public record that under pompeo's explicit Direction the CIA Drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues subjecting us to theft hacking attacks and the planting of false information my wife and my infant son were also targeted a CIA asset was permanently assigned to track my wife and instructions were given to obtain DNA from my six month-old son's nappy

  • Pompeo not shutting door on joining a second Trump administration

So what's up with this guy? Is there other facts I've missed. Is he just Trump's handler? Why is he spilling secrets in this autobiography?

I feel like I’m having a stroke just reading those transcripts.

It's mostly raw YouTube machine generated unfortunately, with few edits, and a couple of jokes :p

A side note, Pompeo is not the only politician who seems to be influenced by the CIA. Mike Johnson, The Speaker of the House went from one of the biggest opponent of the CIA one year ago to the [biggest proponent because "they took him to a room and showed him something"](source: https://rumble.com/v4siucc-system-update-263.html#)

What kind of world model fits all these facts? It seems like a barely incompetent CIA, is cheaply buying and influencing politicians on both sides, including the outsider candidate: Trump.

P.S. a previous popular Motte Thread What did you learn from leaked documents?

It looks far more like blackmail to me. Consider what one must do to become a politician in DC, its probable that the CIA has dirt on almost everyone. In this model of the world, the House, Senate, and Presidency are just kabuki executing the intelligence community's whims. This also somewhat fits with them desperately hating Trump, because his dirt was public pre-2015, making him largely more difficult to blackmail.

Mike Johnson is also uniquely vulnerable to blackmail considering his squeaky clean image.

And Trump is, of course, the opposite.

The Epstein stuff (having an organised operation creating and collecting blackmail, and kept under wraps) seems to support this.

My model: Johnson isn't a good faith actor and he complained about CIA for self agrandisment purposes only. He seems to be an absolute weasel.

it could also be Johnson is a good faith actor and his CIA took me to a room claim is a way of telegraphing to everyone that he has been compromised.

This seems coherent. Politicians often tell people what they want to hear and make excuses for changing their mind. His excuse is "men in suits showed me a secret", which is convenient, not disprovable, and would suit conspiracy theorists.

What kind of world model fits all these facts?

Intelligence community officials are megalomanical blowhards who worship Tzeentch.

Tzeentch

Agree on this part :p

Pompeo seems enthusiastic than just influenced "I was the CIA director, we lied we cheated, we stole".

Seems he found an agency in his image. Maybe he was influenced for quite a while, but the guy doesn't seem to be afraid of others but to fit in.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DPt-zXn05ac

Trump doesn't seem that courageous but I hope he doe reign them in instead of being reigned in by the CIA. Do I expect him to do that? No.

Trump loves to make promises, but he didn't really deliver in reigning in the deep state the first time. At least it is something that he throws some dirt on Pompeo.

Yeah, past performance is a better predictor than present promises

Trump doesn't seem that courageous

How do you figure that

Well, one of his major campaign promises was to release the JRK files. But he unapologetically broke his promise because a deep state person said no.

His motto used to be "you are fired" and he was elected to fire people (drain the swamp), and given executive power to do it. It was literally a memo or tweet away. He should have fired at least one government employee every day via twitter but did not.

These just don't sound like someone who is very courageous?

The man got shot in the head and then stood up, faced the crowd, and pumped his fist changing "Fight!" He ran for President and destroyed any chance of a peaceful quiet retirement because he felt called. He didn't have to do any of this.

Instead of positing that a promise unfulfilled is some kind of cowardice (because Trump can never be imagined to possess any good qualities), why not just suppose Trump changed his mind? You can say he changed his mind for bad reasons, you can even suggest that you would have done a better job if you want.

I suppose that may be true. Or he could be situationally brave. Or he never planned to keep his campaign promises.

You are right, there are many other interpretations.

"Intelligence Agencies create stories inside stories, each with its carefully constructed trail of evidence, in order to create false trails as diversions.”

True his autobiography is likely lots of lies/spin. But it also sounds like a politician the CIA can hardly rein in, who is desperate for attention. Some of it is backed up by court documents, although this is spotty, and some of it second hand.