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How long before Ben Rhodes gets swept up in Susan Rice unmasking scandal?

How long before Ben Rhodes gets swept up in Susan Rice unmasking scandal?

At this point, anti-Trump Russia hysteria smells like Ben Rhodes-style echo chamber, Part 2

My post, At this point, anti-Trump Russia hysteria smells like Ben Rhodes-style echo chamber, has received a pretty good reaction.

The basis thesis was that what is happening to Trump when it comes to Russia is similar to the admitted deception and media echo chamber created by Ben Rhodes, communications point man for the Obama administration’s push for the Iran nuclear deal.

That deception involved the false narrative of nuclear talks sparked by a newly-found moderation in the Iranian regime, and the creation of a self-sustaining echo chamber of naive media and aligned pro-Iranian interest groups. The goal was not just to advance the Iran nuclear deal, but also to provide cover for the overall objective of a Grand Bargain with Iran, giving Iran regional hegemony.

While the anti-Trump Russia echo chamber doesn’t mirror the Iran echo chamber precisely in details, it’s pretty close when it comes to creating a similar effect.

A follower on Twitter, Thomas Villecco, suggested this paradigm:

Gin up false narrative of Russian collusion.

Unmask Trump people who spoke with Russians.

Disseminate info across bureaucracy.

Await leaks.

https://twitter.com/VilleccoThomas/status/849113376416464896

There are pieces of that puzzle coming into view.

Rhodes has been a particularly aggressive defender of the Obama administration and Rice through his Twitter account, demanding that media stay focused on Russia, and stop covering the Rice story.

Maybe he is righteously indignant, or maybe he doth protest too much.

https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/848918739399606272

https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/849455809599819782

https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/849677352581943297

Then there is this reminder from Lee Smith, writing at The Tablet, that before Obama snooping (allegedly) came for Trump, it came for the Israel supporters opposing the Iran deal, Did the Obama Administration’s Abuse of Foreign-Intelligence Collection Start Before Trump?:

In a December 29, 2015 article, The Wall Street Journal described how the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on Israeli officials to understand how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, like Ambassador Ron Dermer, intended to fight the Iran Deal. The Journal reported that the targeting “also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups.” ….

I believe the spying was real and that it was done not in an effort to keep the country safe from threats—but in order to help the White House fight their domestic political opponents.

“At some point, the administration weaponized the NSA’s legitimate monitoring of communications of foreign officials to stay one step ahead of domestic political opponents,” says a pro-Israel political operative who was deeply involved in the day-to-day fight over the Iran Deal. “The NSA’s collections of foreigners became a means of gathering real-time intelligence on Americans engaged in perfectly legitimate political activism—activism, due to the nature of the issue, that naturally involved conversations with foreigners. We began to notice the White House was responding immediately, sometimes within 24 hours, to specific conversations we were having. At first, we thought it was a coincidence being amplified by our own paranoia. After a while, it simply became our working assumption that we were being spied on.”

This is what systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection for domestic political purposes looks like: Intelligence collected on Americans, lawmakers, and figures in the pro-Israel community was fed back to the Obama White House as part of its political operations. The administration got the drop on its opponents by using classified information, which it then used to draw up its own game plan to block and freeze those on the other side. And—with the help of certain journalists whose stories (and thus careers) depend on high-level access—terrorize them.

Once you understand how this may have worked, it becomes easier to comprehend why and how we keep being fed daily treats of Trump’s nefarious Russia ties. The issue this time isn’t Israel, but Russia, yet the basic contours may very well be the same.

(As an aside, U.S. spying on Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly was so intense during the Obama years that to evade surveillance Netanyahu had no office computer, email or private phone, and sometimes resorted to “gestures”)

I’ll come back to points I’ve made before: I can’t prove that the innuendo against the Trump campaign over alleged collusion is true, or that it’s false. Because at this point, there are no actual facts in the public record on which to reach an informed decision. But I’ll add, that until there is such proof, Trump and his campaign should be presumed innocent.

On the Susan Rice unmasking scandal, by contrast, there are facts suggesting Rice was not truthful when she first discussed the unmasking issue, and she has a history of deception at best, lying at worst. But she too is presumed innocent.

I predict a dual track investigation:

What this suggests, is that while there may not necessarily have been anything illegal about Susan Rice making those requests, given her background, given how she was put out as the point person to spread the lie about the Benghazi video, that it was an attack based on a video, given her tattered history, I think that it’s very, very suspicious, and it certainly warrants additional information, additional investigation.

So I think what this all but guarantees is that there will be a dual track investigation in Congress.

On the one hand, any alleged collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia, of which there’s been no proof thus far, but also the action of the Obama administration.

I don’t see how the Obama administration does not now become a target of congressional investigation after this revelation.”

As to Ben Rhodes, I’ll take a “long shot” on this: I’ll be shocked if, by the time this is over, he’s not somehow drawn into the Rice unmasking scandal:

https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/849633935999066113

 

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Comments

Didn’t Rice just say two weeks ago that she had no knowledge of Trump people being “swept up” in any surveillance of the Russians? Now she’s all but admitted that she’s the one who “unmasked” the Americans (who just happened to be Trump campaign and transition team members, if you can believe that). This is par for the course. For Liberals, this is akin to a tug-of-war. They dig in, but over time, they are pulled closer and closer to the center line. But if they can hold on long enough, no matter how close they come to the line, if the media/people/RINOs become distracted before they are pulled over the center, they win. It doesn’t matter that one more tug (e.g., Comey recommending Hillary’s indictment) would win the day for the law, somehow that last tug never comes.

Oddly Susan Rice is scheduled to speak at an event at 6pm this Saturday in Rochester NY.

The inherent supposition of the Russia-Trump collusion is absurd. There was no gain for Russia with a Trump victory. OTOH, the Clintons had already been horse trading with the Ruskies for some time.

The entire fantasy was cooked up as a cover to surveil Trump. From the standpoint of the culprits, the worst that could happen would be an “investigation” that drags on interminably and ultimately uncovers nothing; it would still taint the new Administration, or so they hope.

The intellectual inbreeding of the mandarins of Washington blinds them to the actual tastes and concerns of the populace at large, those beyond the Left Coast and the NYC-DC corridor. I believe they have overplayed their hand; I doubt that the Russian “threat” ranks that high amongst the concerns of most Americans. If anything, Americans perceive Islam as a more pervasive threat to our way of life while the mandarin elite stubbornly deny it.

The battle lines are drawn: Globalists vs. Nationalists.

    Tom Servo in reply to Jarvis. | April 5, 2017 at 11:33 pm

    The problem with the Russia Story is that they needed to come up with something concrete, and they have never been able to. (Somebody’s brother talked to someone who saw Putin once while he was on vacation, or something? That’s pathetic)

    If Trump is on the ball, Rhodes needs to eventually get a jail term out of this. May take a while, but it needs to happen.

inspectorudy | April 5, 2017 at 10:29 pm

Hasn’t it dawned on the public that for Rice and Rhodes to have been working this Russian angle for almost a year before the election, that this whole meme is made up just like the Benghazi video and the lies about the Iran deal? Why would they be listening in on the Trump team except to foment a big lie about Russian collusion? This is Rice and Rhodes MO. They have done this so many times it should be obvious to all. Rhodes even went so far as to laugh at the reporters at how naive they are and that they believe whatever he tells them. Look at them now! There is no other reason that Rice could have because the WH doesn’t have investigative authority. What will her excuse be this time?

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to inspectorudy. | April 6, 2017 at 10:38 am

    This “Russian” Meme first came to my attention last summer (2016). The Dims where mouthing that fake item with their “lying lips” then.

Make no mistake about it. The media is complicit in the spinning of the fake Russia outrage.

You don’t have to be any kind of communication genius when the media will do your bidding at the drop of the hat.

Mailman

I’m surprised that being a paid liar paid so well. What is Ben doing these days?

Mrs. Clinton, after her disastrous interview with Matt Lauer, reportedly said ““If that f – – – ing bastard wins, we all hang from nooses!”

Wondering why . . .

It has been almost six months since the election. The time has come to increase your Donald Trump image catalog to include more than just the cheeto photo.

Ben Rhodes was assuredly one of the bigger snakes in the Oshitbag administration. It would be most refreshing to see him get his comeuppance. I’ll hold my breath.

Ben Rhodes, Valerie, Rice are all ideologues. The end justifies the means.

Rhodes would do anything to push his agenda forward.

If you want to grasp what it is like to live in a society of total surveillance, watch the movie “The Lives Of Others.” When you finish if you are not a civil libertarian, there is no hope for you.

kenoshamarge | April 6, 2017 at 10:44 am

If Ben Rhodes is involved it’s nasty and dirty because that’s him and his MO.

The idea that the Russians would have colluded with the Trump campaign makes zero sense from any angle you look at this.

Let’s pretend that Putin favored Trump over Hillary! Another way to put it is Putin wanted to Hillary! to lose to Trump. Why would he want to then delegitimize Trump by getting his or Trump associates’ fingerprints on the operation? Why would he conduct the operation so brazenly? Assuming it was a Russian operation. If it was, Putin clearly didn’t want to cover his tracks. Alternatively, it wasn’t a Russian operation, it was just supposed to look like one. But let’s not explore the alternatives for the moment. If Putin wanted Hillary! to lose to Trump, why would he conduct his cyber attack in such a manner he’d spoil his own victory? It makes no sense.

And if you step back so you don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees, why would Putin reject Hillary! in favor of Trump? I can’t imagine a more Putin-friendly foreign policyT than the Obama/Clinton (and later Kerry) “Russian reset.” They betrayed the Czech Republic and Poland over ballistic missile defense (on the 70th anniversary of the Nazis and communists invading and partitioning Poland no less, tell me that was an accident).

This didn’t happen on Hillary!’s watch, but the foreign policy she willingly implemented and that Kerry also eagerly collaborated with eventually led to Russian being dealt back into the Middle East as a major power broker, the US dealing itself out, kidnapping at least one Estonian security officer inside Estonia and later putting him on trial, as well as seizing the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Can someone please Voxsplain to me why Putin wouldn’t want a third Obama term? Other than the fact that Hillary! wouldn’t look as good in the French maid costume Putin forced Obama to wear at summits, and make sammiches.

Then there’s the money. The Billy Jeff, Hillary!, and Chelsea slush fund received at least $145 million in contributions from oligarchs close to Putin during the Obama years. Billy Jeff flew to Moscow to collect a $500 dollar pay off. It was called a speaking fee, but if you’re at all familiar with the third world you know it’s the First Lady’s job to launder the bribes. And John Podesta joined the corporate board of a firm called Joule Energy. Within days the company received a $35 million dollar injection of cash from a Russian “venture capital” company, Rusnano. Rusnano is widely considered “Putin’s baby” in Russia.

At the time Podesta was an unpaid but influential adviser to SecState Clinton and a special adviser to Obama. And he’s being paid by Putin. And, oh by the way, he didn’t mention the stock he held in Joule Energy on his financial disclosure forms.

Implacable foes? Hardly.