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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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At some point, Bob Woodward was assigned a post that required handling something nuke-adjacent.

He was a communications officer. For an admiral. That presumably involves handling top-secret materials and decrypts and stuff like that.

That's a position of great delicacy. How many WaPo reporters had that kind of background?

If Nixon were set up, how’d he get caught on tape planning the coverup?

The set up wasn't the cover-up. The set up was the break in. That put him in a bind and he had to try to cover it up. What was he supposed to do ?

The set up wasn't the cover-up. The set up was the break in. That put him in a bind and he had to try to cover it up. What was he supposed to do ?

So the conspirators orchestrated a set up and knew that Nixon would try to corruptly cover it up? That's interesting, how did they know that?

Sitting US presidents spying on the campaigns of their opponents was a thing of the era, so.. Still, is, no ? I mean, wasn't Trump campaign bugged over some BS made up pretext ? And that's what we just know of.

Nixon was too insecure, tried to have it done without cooperating people who could do these things legally (FBI) and it backfired on him. Nothing happened to LBJ over him spying on Goldwater's campaign. These days, probably God alone knows what Ike, an actually competent plotter got up to during his time in office.

Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but your claim is that although it's a common thing for US Presidents to spy on the campaigns of their opponents, Nixon had to be set-up on the Watergate break-in, but the real trap is that the people who set him up expected Nixon to try to cover up the break-in. Am I understanding correctly?

I mean, wasn't Trump campaign bugged over some BS made up pretext ?

What is your evidence for this?

Back in 2019, Trump walked back his claims about his campaign being wiretapped, claiming he didn't mean that literally. He said "I used the word ‘wiretap,’ and I put in quotes, meaning surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want" and also that his allegation wasn't really based on any actual evidence but more on "a little bit of a hunch". His DOJ confirmed in a court filing they had no evidence of Obama wiretapping Trump's campaign.

If you are not aware of any evidence to support the assertion that Trump's campaign was bugged, do you have any insight into why you held this belief? Do you suspect or worry that your media diet and the sources that you pay attention to might prompt you to hold verifiably erroneous beliefs? Would that prompt you to reexamine any other beliefs you may hold?

If you are not aware of any evidence to support the assertion that Trump's campaign was bugged, do you have any insight into why you held this belief?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_wiretapping_allegations

Note what isn't denied: that FBI or CIA could have simply done what they always do when they want someone extrajudicially bugged: ask the British nicely.

Given the incentives and the hysteria around Trump. It's also perfectly deniable, as inter-spook agency communications are almost certainly not subject to FOIAs.

Your evidence for the claim that the Trump campaign was wiretapped is that the FBI/CIA has not denied asking the British to wiretap the Trump campaign? It's totally possible I'm misreading you, but if not...what?

You want solid evidence of something that's both extremely secret and very sensitive, right ? And theoretically criminal, although the odds of the government prosecuting itself over other parts of the government breaking the law have always been rather low.

The people- top natsec bureaucrats lied to us before (e.g. Snowden leaks) and they've lied to us after Trump re: Biden laptop.

A safe assumption is that anything you hear from them is a self-serving lie.

If you want me to dig up proof of something secret and illegal that they were likely to have done in the meantime, that's quite of like an isolated demand for rigor.

Mind you don't seem to put much stock into the idea of the FBI not being law abiding either, judging by what you've posted elsewhere, so I'm slightly puzzled.

Trump: Obama has a teapot orbiting the earth

NASA: We've checked our records and we've never launched a teapot, nor have we ever ever received reports of an orbiting teapot

Trump: Well I didn't mean that literally, also it was just based on a hunch

@No_one: Notice how the French have not denied launching a teapot into space? How suspicious.

Trump was being widely accused of being a Russian asset and attacked by intelligence officials like Brennan, who was CIA director until 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brennan_(CIA_officer)

Yet we're supposed to believe someone who was thought to be a national security risk, was obviously hated by intel officials .. that such a despicable security risk was not likely surveilled or wiretapped because of ..what?

FBI having a culture of abiding by the laws and never making shit up or cutting corners in pursuit of what they think is their duty ?

The same FBI who knowingly used fraudulent methods in many of their court cases for.. decades?

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They put him in a position where any move was a losing one.

Cover it up, get him on the cover-up and then it becomes (stupid) conventional wisdom - "the cover-up is what gets you" (which doesn't apply when you're (for example) Sandy Berger who only got two years probation for removing and destroying classified material from the National Archives). If he doesn't cover-up then they get him on the crime and never mention this floating hypothesis that "the cover-up is the real crime".

If he doesn't cover-up then they get him on the crime

Which crime?